


Too Good To Be True

by Miko



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-07-27
Updated: 2006-12-31
Packaged: 2017-10-21 10:46:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 115,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/224333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miko/pseuds/Miko
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When things seem too good to be true it usually means there's a catch hidden somewhere. But hasn't Cloud earned his happy ending ten times over?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The sound of his booted footsteps echoed strangely in the halls, sounding hollow like the steps of a ghost. Cloud found he was moving gingerly to try to muffle the sound, and forced himself to walk normally. There was nothing here that could hurt him. He'd already chased off the few orderlies and lab assistants who had remained, working away faithfully despite the fact that they hadn't heard from Hojo or Shinra for years.

There hadn't been many, and they'd been dismayed more by hearing that Shinra was gone and their funding had dried up than by hearing about Sephiroth's attempts to destroy the world with Meteor. Buried miles underground, almost completely self-sufficient and contained, this hidden lab of Hojo's had remained oblivious to what was going on over their heads.

This lab was no different than any of the others Cloud had been in, and he'd been in far more than he'd ever wanted to be. Whether it was at the top of the Shinra tower, in the basement of the Shinra mansion, or buried deep beneath the mountains south of Kalm, Hojo's labs were all the same. It made his gut twist with vague memories of horror, and he resolved to get what he'd come for and get out again as quickly as possible.

Hojo's lab in the Shinra tower had been destroyed, of course, and all of his records there with it. Cloud had found some few records of the experiments Hojo had done on him in the Shinra mansion, but it was obvious that the majority had been moved somewhere else. At first he'd despaired, thinking they must have been taken to the main lab, but then he'd run across mention of this super-secret lab. He wasn't even entirely certain Shinra had known about Hojo's third lab.

He wanted to know what had been done to him. It was more than just what SOLDIERs were put through, he knew that. Now that the geostigma was gone he wanted to know what else he could expect, how much damage might have been done to him, and whether or not new side effects might continue to crop up as the years went by. If he was lucky, his records had been moved here rather than to the Shinra tower. It might take him years to decipher the scientific language and figure out what the after effects would be, but he wanted to _know_.

He passed a large plate-glass wall, overlooking a lab area with four mako tanks. Cloud shuddered and turned away quickly, the diffuse green glow of the concentrated mako bringing up yet more memories he didn't want to consider. Hojo's office would be at the end of the hall, and that was where he would find the records he needed.

Two steps past the window, he paused, looking back. The green glow of mako light meant at least one of the tanks was full. Concentrated mako was too valuable a resource for the scientists to just leave in the tanks when they weren't in use. That meant something was in the tanks. Something, or some _one_.

Dumbfounded, Cloud moved back to the window and stared out onto the lab floor. One of the tanks was unmistakeably occupied, the man inside suspended in the viscous liquid facing away from Cloud. Dark hair drifted slowly in the currents of the mako, but the man wasn't moving at all. He might not be awake, or he might have been trapped inside his own mind, like Cloud had been for so long.

It had never even occurred to him that they might _still_ be experimenting on people, but it should have. With no further orders from Hojo, the lab assistants would have kept on with whatever they'd last been told to do. Cursing, Cloud turned and moved quickly towards the door to the lab. After all this time the man was almost certainly too far gone to be saved, but Cloud had to try.

The smell of the mako hit him the moment he opened the lab door, but he did his best to ignore it. He was sure his eyes were glowing in reaction. The tank was a more advanced design than the ones in the mansion, and he had to hunt for the controls to empty it.

As he came around the front of the tank he glanced up, and froze. The dark-haired man floating in the tank had his eyes closed and his hair partially obscured his features, but not to the point where Cloud couldn't get a decent look at him.

Even after so many years, even after having his memories so badly scrambled, Cloud couldn't have failed to recognize that face. "Zack?" he breathed, lifting his hands to rest on the glass tank. It couldn't be possible. It just couldn't really be Zack in there. "Zack?" he repeated, louder and more urgently.

Sound travelled oddly through the thick mako, distorted and warped by the liquid, but it was enough to get the man's attention. For a long moment the noises seemed random to him, not making any sense. Slowly he opened his eyes, and through the green haze of the mako he saw familiar blond spikes and wide blue eyes. That was when the word suddenly made sense; 'Zack' was a name. _His_ name. How long had it been since anyone had called him that?

Tentatively Zack lifted his hands to press against the glass on the other side of the blond's. He couldn't trust his memories, didn't believe who his mind was telling him was standing there. It couldn't be Cloud, because Cloud was dead... but it sure looked like him. Right down to the stunned look in his big blue eyes. How often had the little blond been shocked by something outrageous Zack had said or done?

Staring up into Zack's painfully familiar blue-violet eyes, the colour vivid enough to show even through the green mako, Cloud couldn't seem to remember how to breathe. He was shaking, too, his hands trembling against the glass. Could it be some kind of clone? Had Hojo somehow succeeded with Zack what he'd failed to do with Sephiroth? But why would he have even tried?

Nor would that theory explain the bemused recognition in the expression of the man in the tank. Cloud couldn't see much but his eyes around the oxygen mask that let him breathe, but it was enough. "Just... just hold on," he said, his mouth so dry it almost hurt to speak. "I'll get you out."

Gamely, Zack gave the blond a weak thumbs-up gesture. He'd decided to play along with his hallucination. It was a hell of a lot nicer than what was probably really happening to him. The most vivid and personal of his mako-induced hallucinations tended to come when his mind was protecting him from reality, and this was by far the most real one yet. He didn't like to think of what that implied about the level of what his body must be going through. Well, maybe he'd get lucky and they'd finally go too far, and kill him.

In the meantime, a dream of Cloud rescuing him was much more pleasant than his usual replay of the events at Nibelheim, or of the endless days he'd spent on the run with his comatose friend. He could definitely live with this being the last thing he ever saw, if they did manage to kill him.

Fumbling with the controls, Cloud growled under his breath and was seriously considering just trying to smash the glass when he finally found the release. Mako hissed as it was pumped out of the tank, the levels dropping far too slowly for Cloud's non-existent patience.

The moment the door locks released, he wrenched it open so hard it nearly came off the hinges. Zack was leaning against the glass wall for support, weak and uncoordinated after an extended period in the tank. How long had it been, anyway? He lost track of time so easily these days. Before, in the mansion, any time he'd caught himself drifting off or thinking about giving up all he'd needed to do was look over at the next tank where Cloud was. When they'd brought him back, though, and told him that Cloud had been killed, he'd more or less given up hope. He had nothing left to fight with, and little to fight for.

"Zack?" Cloud whispered, reaching out with shaking hands to tug the oxygen mask off. The face beneath was older and far more worn than the brief flashes of his friend that he had found in his scrambled memories, but then again Zack would be twenty-six now, not eighteen. If he had lived. "Zack, is it really you? It can't be..."

"Hey, kid." Zack's voice was harsh and raspy after a long period of disuse, but his quirked smile was still the same. Lifting a hand that trembled with weakness, he brushed his fingers over the boy's - no, young man's - cheek. "I always knew you were still in there somewhere. Welcome back."

Ramuh, how often had he dreamed of being able to say those words, during that year they'd spent on the run? Some days Cloud had been more responsive than others, just enough to keep Zack's hope alive, but he'd never woken completely. The blue eyes that looked back at him now shone with the subtle gleam of mako, but they were full of personality rather than dead and empty.

Choking softly, Cloud tried to contain the wellspring of emotions and memories that had suddenly burst open within him. It was Zack. Incredibly, impossibly, it really was _Zack_. He recognized Cloud, remembered their journey across the face of the world. A clone wouldn't have those memories, wouldn't have faint traces of scars that Cloud remembered; the thin line running through one dark eyebrow, the ragged mark on one shoulder, and...

And, gods help him, the horrible pucker of bullet exit wounds on his chest that had obviously been left untreated too long for magic to prevent the scarring. It was those more than anything that convinced Cloud of the identity of the man before him. "You're dead," he said faintly. Distantly he was aware that he was probably going into shock. "You're dead, you died on the cliff." It was one of the most vivid of the few memories he had won back from within his mako-shattered mind, in fact. Probably because he relived it so often in his dreams, now that he _had_ remembered it.

"Funny," Zack's lips twisted in a way that said it wasn't funny at all. "That's my line. But that's okay, I'm only dreaming this, so you can be alive if you want to be. It's a hell of a lot better than the dreams where you show up to chew me out for not saving you. You're not going to do that, are you? You don't usually rescue me first in those ones."

He was rambling and unfocused, and Cloud grimaced as he recognized the signs of mako overexposure. Apparently even Zack, who had held firmly to his sense of self throughout tortures that had sent Cloud fleeing into the depths of his own mind, had limits to how much he could endure. "Not saving me?" he repeated incredulously. "You _did_. If not for you I'd have been just one more black clone making my way to die at the Reunion."

Seeing the total incomprehension in Zack's eyes, Cloud shook his head. "That's not important," he said. "Come on, let's get you out of here and find some clothes for you." Slinging Zack's arm over his shoulder, eerily aware of the role reversal, he helped the man out of the tank.

"This is a switch," Zack announced, his thoughts following much the same path. "Not that I'm complaining, mind you. I wonder if they're taking me out, and my mind is just replacing the tech with you? If so, they must be confused as hell if I'm actually saying all this stuff out loud." He snorted with amusement at the thought. It had been a long time since he'd bothered trying to talk to the techs. They'd probably assume he'd finally lost himself to the mako.

Maybe he had. It wasn't as bad as he'd been afraid it would be, if so.

"If anyone is dreaming here, it's me," Cloud told him. He got them pointed at the door and moving, and with each step a little more of Zack's coordination and strength returned. The brunet started walking more confidently, taking more of his own weight, but he didn't make any effort to pull away. Cloud was grateful. He was afraid it would all vanish if he took his eyes off Zack for even a second.

"Well, don't stop dreaming, then," Zack ordered him. "I won't if you won't. I like this dream." As his strength returned, he struggled to fight his way out of the morass of thoughts and memories that were not his own, inflicted on him by the mako. He didn't remember it being this difficult. Was it just that the effect was much stronger now, or had it been so long since he'd last tried that he'd gotten out of practice?

Grunting his agreement to that, Cloud got them through the door of the lab and into the hall. Looking from one side to the other, he debated. This corridor ended at Hojo's office, so the living quarters must be elsewhere. That was where he was most likely to find clothing for Zack, but he didn't really want to have to walk past the lab more often than he absolutely needed to.

Zack first, he finally decided. "This way," he urged the older man, turning away from Hojo's office. "There were a dozen techs and assistants, one of them will have something that fits you. I chased them off already."

"You didn't kill them?" Zack wasn't sure whether he should be disappointed. There was a part of him that longed for a chance to turn the tables on the bastards who'd made his last few years a living hell, but he'd never really been the sort of person to focus on revenge. He preferred to look forward to better things. If Cloud had already killed them, then the temptation for revenge would have been removed.

"I didn't realize they were still experimenting on people, or I would have," Cloud growled. "I may yet track them down. Later." Much later. After he was sure Zack was real, that he wouldn't vanish given half a chance.

They reached the living quarters, and Cloud helped Zack sit on the edge of the first cot. "Stay there, don't move," he commanded. "I'm going to look for something that will fit you." He was reluctant to step out of reach, but he couldn't exactly take Zack out of here wearing nothing but his scars.

"I'm not going anywhere," Zack informed him, leaning back on his hands and shifting to a position where he'd be able to see most of the room. He wasn't going to let Cloud out of his sight, for fear the dream would change or end.

Most of the techs' belongings had been hastily gathered up as they left the compound after Cloud had gotten through with them, but they'd been in too much of a hurry to take more than they could carry. There were plenty of clothes left. He had to dig past the ubiquitous lab coats, but finally he managed to find a pair of black jeans and a white shirt that he thought would fit.

Bringing them back to the bed, he handed them to Zack. "Here," he said gruffly, feeling his hope and disbelief grow with every moment that passed without the other man vanishing. "I'll look for some boots, too. You can't go out barefoot."

"Thanks," Zack said softly, taking them. The textures of the fabrics felt strange against his skin; it had been a long time since he'd felt anything but the mako or the coarse robe they gave him when he was out of the tank. He'd also lost all the callous on his hands, he realized with a grimace when he rubbed his fingers together and found only soft skin. Probably on his feet, too. He was going to be suffering blisters for a while.

That reminded him of something else, though. "I need my sword," he said as he stood carefully to pull the pants up. They were a little loose at the waist, but not so much they were sliding off his hips, and he'd rather they were loose than tight. The shirt was too small, but it was soft and stretchy so it just meant it was a close fit. "I don't know where they're keeping it, though."

Cloud froze, his heart skipping a beat. The sword. Zack's sword. Automatically his hand went to the hilt of the pieces of First Tsurugi that were in the sheath at his hip. He hadn't bothered taking all six, only the first three. "It's not here," he said, releasing his grip and going back to his search for boots. "I took it. It's back in Midgar." Planted on the cliff where Zack had died... except that apparently he hadn't. It was starting to sink in that this might just be real.

"You made it, then," Zack exclaimed, breathing a sigh of relief. "Good. Did you find Aerith? Was she able to help? How long has it been since then, what have I missed?"

"A lot," Cloud replied shortly, unable to get more out past the lump in his throat. Aerith. Oh gods, Zack didn't know about Aerith. How was Cloud ever going to tell him? "It's been three years since then," he managed after a moment. "I'll tell you everything, but not now. I want to get what I came for and get the hell out of here."

"What you came for?" Zack blinked. Didn't Cloud already have what he'd come for? "You didn't come to rescue me?"

Finding a pair of heavy work boots that he thought would fit well enough, Cloud took them and a pair of socks back to Zack. He knelt to help get them on, but his hands were shaking on the laces. "I thought you were dead," he whispered. "I thought... I had no idea you were here. I came looking for my records." What if he'd never found this place? What if it had never occurred to him to go looking for the account of what had been done to him? Sweet Shiva, what if he'd walked past the window to the lab and never looked inside, for fear of the memories that would come? Zack might have been left here forever.

"Hey." Concerned at the choked sound in Cloud's voice, Zack ran his hand through the spiky blond locks. This much hadn't changed; Cloud was a man now, not a boy, but stroking his hair still felt the same. "It's okay, kid. I'm just glad you found me, even if it was an accident."

For the first time he started to seriously consider the possibility that this _wasn't_ just another mako hallucination. If he was going to imagine Cloud coming to rescue him, he didn't think he'd have made it an accident. But Cloud was dead, Hojo had told him personally after he'd been here for a month, just to rub it in...

Wait. Hojo had told him? Since when had Zack ever taken _anything_ Hojo said at face value? He must have been more affected by the mako than he'd thought, even then. It had never even occurred to him until this moment that it might have been a lie.

And if it had been a lie, then maybe this was real after all.

Taking a deep breath, Cloud got hold of himself. "We'll get your records too, then get out of here," he said, mostly thinking to himself out loud. "I think... we'll go to Kalm, not back to Edge. We can talk there." He didn't want to subject Zack to the sight of the remains of once proud Midgar until he'd been prepared a little. Also, there was the fact that the only two places he had to go in Edge were Tifa's bar and the church, both of which would bring up problems all of their own. He didn't want to explain about Aerith just yet, and he didn't want to give Tifa a heart attack, either. He'd have to call and warn her somehow.

Realizing what he was thinking, Cloud snorted. Right. Because if he started dropping hints that he'd found Zack alive in a secret lab somewhere, Tifa would definitely believe him rather than thinking he'd lost his mind. _Again_.

"Kalm? Aren't we going to run into troopers there?" Zack asked. The quaint little town was a popular place for Shinra troops who had a weekend leave, which was long enough to want to get out of the city but not long enough to go very far. The absolute last thing he wanted was to be recaptured a third time.

"No," Cloud shook his head, and finished lacing up the boots. They were too big, but they would serve until he had a chance to get something better. "That's one of the biggest changes. We don't have to run and hide any more. There is no Shinra Company."

"No Shinra?" Zack stared at him, wide-eyed. Suddenly this was tipping back towards being a hallucination again. Shinra pretty much ruled the world, and it had definitely still been in prominence when he'd been on the run with Cloud. It had taken him the better part of a year to get them from Nibelheim to Midgar, because he'd had to keep making detours to avoid troops. He couldn't imagine the company would have vanished in just a few short years. Even if something had happened to old man Shinra, and for some reason his son hadn't taken the reins, the company must still exist in _some_ form.

"Like I said, it's a long story," Cloud told him. "You'll have to trust me, Zack. Nothing is the way you remember it."

Smiling, Zack caught the younger man's chin in his fingers and lifted his face until he could see those shimmering blue eyes. "So far all the changes have been for the better," he said. "You have no idea how happy I am to see life in your face. Of course I trust you."

That earned him a lopsided smile in return. "Yeah, well," Cloud waved that off, standing and offering Zack his hand. "Trust me, not all the changes are good. Probably not even most of them. We'll talk in Kalm, okay?"

"Yeah, okay," Zack agreed, and let the blond help him up to his feet. Once there he tested his balance and decided he could probably walk on his own. He promptly slung an arm around Cloud's shoulders, because why would he want to walk on his own when he could enjoy the desperately missed feel of Cloud against him? "Huh, this is more awkward now that you're the same size as me," he noted. "Guess I won't be able to drape myself all over you any more."

His words triggered a rush of forgotten memories for Cloud, and the blond had to bite his lip to keep a soft sound from escaping him at the flood. Dozens of flashes passed through his mind's eye, of the way Zack was always _touching_ him. An arm over his shoulder, a hand ruffling his hair, a warm body leaning against him in a chair; Cloud had always protested, but he hadn't realized how much he'd missed that friendly contact until Zack had reminded him that he'd ever had it.

Swallowing, Cloud shrugged and wrapped an arm around Zack in turn. "You'll manage," he said gruffly. "I'm sure it won't take you more than a day or two to find new ways to pester me."

Laughing in delight, Zack hugged him briefly before moving forward, towing Cloud along with him. "Let's go get those records. I want to see the sun and sky, and feel the wind on my face. I've been underground way too long." Hallucination or not, he was going to enjoy that.

"Yeah, I bet," Cloud agreed, catching up so they were walking side by side. It felt _right_ to be at Zack's side like this, and something inside of him that had been aching so long he hadn't even realized it hurt finally relaxed. Not for the first time Cloud wondered how much he had forgotten, how many memories of his time in Shinra had been lost or scrambled beyond trusting. All he'd really had were the 'memories' of Nibelheim that he'd screwed up in his head, and the hazy recollection of their flight to Midgar and Zack's death. Almost everything before that but after the promise made with Tifa had been lost in the haze of mako.

Just having Zack there with him was bringing some of those lost memories back, and he treasured every moment of them. Even the ones that were embarrassing, of which there were more than a few. They were _his_ , and they were of Zack, and that made them precious.

There was a part of Cloud that had never been quite sure if he really had been friends with the strong, confident, charming SOLDIER 1st Class. Sure, Zack had gone through hell to get him out of the lab and back to Midgar, but maybe Zack was the kind of person who would have done that for anybody. Most of his memories of their time together in Nibelheim had been twisted to be from Zack's point of view, as if Cloud was looking at himself from outside his body, so he couldn't trust what he remembered of the way Zack had treated him then.

But what he was remembering now confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that Zack had been, first and foremost, his friend. They had never been equals, the difference in their ranks and abilities as well as Cloud's utter hero worship had ensured that, but Zack had been like the kind of big brother who enjoys having his little brother tag along on all the interesting stuff.

Feeling about a hundred times happier than he could ever remember being, Cloud wasn't even bothered by the sight of the lab as they walked by it again on the way to Hojo's office. He was too busy revelling in the memories to pay attention to it.

Once inside the office, however, he forced his mind to focus on work again. "I don't suppose you know anything about his record-keeping system," Cloud muttered, looking around at the stacks of filing cabinets labelled with strings of letters and numbers. "I just hope they've kept everything on you updated all this time."

Bits of remembered conversations that he'd overheard returned to Zack through the mako haze, and he frowned. "I think... everything you'd want will be on the hard drive," he said, gesturing at the sleek computer on the desk. "Hojo always kept one set on his computer, one backup disk offsite, one on him, and hardcopies in the cabinets just in case something happened to the computers. He was a paranoid bastard, but he was a _thorough_ paranoid bastard."

"I hope so," Cloud agreed, running his hand over the label on one cabinet that proclaimed it to be part of the Genesis Project. He had no idea what that was, but it wasn't likely to be any more pleasant than the Jenova or Chaos Projects had been. Finding a cabinet for the Jenova Project, he winced as he saw it was only the first of many. "Because I don't think I could possibly get all of this out of here unless I call for Cid and the Sierra."

Going to the desk, he shoved the monitor out of the way and started dismantling the computer. He would take the drive back with him and find out what was on it; he'd probably need help cracking the encryption that was undoubtedly protecting the files, so there was no point in trying to look at it now. If it turned out he needed the hard copies, he could come back for them.

Slipping the drive into his pocket, he turned and found Zack leaning against the wall by the door, arms crossed and one foot up flat on the wall. His heart caught in his throat as another whirlwind flash of memories told him that this was Zack's favourite 'waiting' pose.

"You okay?" Zack asked, concerned when Cloud stopped in the middle of the room and just stared at him. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

"I have," Cloud replied, shaking his head to rid himself of the memories for the moment. "I'm looking at him right now. It's overwhelming."

"Yeah," Zack agreed, his eyes softening. "I hear you. C'mon, kid, let's blow this joint. I want real food and a real bath, and I want to hear the whole story of what I've missed."

Nodding, Cloud moved to leave. Zack reached to ruffle his hair as he passed, a motion Cloud automatically tried to duck away from. He'd never been able to manage it before, with Zack's SOLDIER reflexes so much faster than his, but this time he actually stepped back out of reach before Zack could get to him.

They blinked at each other for a moment, both surprised and disconcerted. Cloud found he was disappointed that he'd evaded the touch, and Zack must have read some of that in his eyes because he took a step forward and did it anyway. "Aw, it's not as much fun if you're not all grumpy and protesting," the older man teased him with a gentle smile.

"So you'll just have to move faster," Cloud told him, biting down on a smile of his own. There was no point in encouraging him too much. "You were getting sloppy anyway, it'll do you some good to have to work for it."

Then, just because he _could_ , he lifted a hand and ruffled Zack's hair in turn, catching the man completely off guard. Zack squawked and flailed in surprise, much as Cloud had once done. Cloud had never attempted to retaliate before, just to avoid it. For one thing, he'd never have been able to catch the SOLDIER if he'd tried.

Fighting fire with fire, he discovered, was much more fun. "Now I finally see why you kept doing that," he said with a soft laugh. The laughter was tentative; it had been a while since the last time he'd laughed about anything. "You do look pretty damn cute with that shocked look on your face."

Zack stared at him, then started laughing as well. "It's about time you learned how to fight back," he told the blond, delighted. He'd been distressed when Cloud had avoided him, afraid that maybe too much had changed between them for them to regain the easy friendship they'd once enjoyed. He'd been right; their friendship was never going to return to what it had been. But having Cloud as an equal was going to be even better.


	2. Chapter 2

The feel of the sun on his skin and the wind in his face was so startling that Zack had to stop just outside the doors, soaking it in. They were far enough into the mountain range that they didn't have a clear view in any direction, but just being able to see farther than the wall on the other side of the room was a novel experience as well. It was at the same time familiar and unfamiliar; he'd spent a lot of time outdoors in his life, but three years in a lab had made everything seem new and strange.

He remembered this from the last time they'd escaped, as well. At that time he'd been too distracted by trying to avoid the Turks and troopers to really pay attention to the newness of everything, more worried about getting them out alive than noticing minor details. This time he had a chance to appreciate it all.

"Gorgeous," he sighed in contentment, scanning the view from where they stood. "Gods, it's so good to feel the sun. Where are we?"

"South of Kalm," Cloud told him, moving forward to stand beside his friend. There was a small but completely sincere smile on the blond's face, and his eyes were soft as he watched Zack take everything in. "I guess Hojo didn't want to deal with the hassle of going farther than that every time he wanted to visit his lab. I'm pretty sure Shinra didn't know about this one. Not officially."

"Yeah, I think you're right," Zack agreed absently. His eyes tracked an eagle soaring over the valley, and the uncomplicated delight in his expression was like a little kid opening presents on his birthday. "What happened to him, anyway? I haven't seen him in a while, and you've been referring to him in the past tense." He glanced at Cloud with one eyebrow raised. He wouldn't cry if the bastard was dead, but it would be good to know for sure.

"He's gone," Cloud confirmed, his eyes narrowed and a light of vicious satisfaction flaring in them. "I made sure of that myself. There wasn't much left of him by the end; he used his research on himself, and fused himself with Jenova."

"Jenova." Zack's expression turned hard. To him that name meant little more than the project of Hojo's that he knew he and Cloud had been part of, and it had something to do with the events that had led to Sephiroth's death all those years before. "I take it that's part of the long story?"

"The heart of it," Cloud returned sourly. "Jenova and Sephiroth have been the root of everything that's gone wrong since Nibelheim. With Hojo as a willing accomplice, of course."

"Sephiroth?" Blinking, Zack stared at him. "Seph _survived_? You threw him into the reactor core!" He'd relived those events often enough to be certain of them, even though the mako had eaten holes into almost everything else. Surely even Sephiroth couldn't be powerful enough to survive that.

The way Cloud's shoulders tensed and he ducked his head was not a good sign. Zack winced, regretting his hasty words. Zack had looked up to and admired their general, but Cloud had worshipped the man. And it had been Cloud's hometown that Sephiroth had burned. If Zack saw his actions that night as a horrible betrayal of trust, how much worse must it have been for Cloud?

"It's a..." Cloud started, and Zack sighed and cut him off.

"Long story, yeah, I know." Reaching out in an instinctive desire to comfort the younger man, Zack slung an arm over Cloud's shoulders. "Let's find somewhere quiet and comfortable so you can tell me all about it. Preferably somewhere with easy access to alcohol, from the sounds of it."

"It would probably help," Cloud agreed dryly. Whether he meant it would help Zack to hear it, or him to tell the story in the first place, even he wasn't sure. Both, most likely. "I just want to seal the door, and then we can leave. The last thing we want is the techs coming back to destroy or steal all the records. We might still need them."

Turning, he pulled free of Zack's embrace with a pang of regret. As much as he'd protested all the touching before, now he found it a reassuring reminder that Zack was _real_ , solid and right here beside him. He had a feeling it would be a very long time before he'd be happy to have Zack out of reach, let alone out of sight.

The door to the lab was well hidden, cleverly disguised to look like the rock around it. The elevator it led to went down halfway to forever, or so it had seemed when he was riding it. Lifting his hand, Cloud activated the single materia he'd slotted into an old bracer for this trip. First Tsurugi didn't have materia slots; nothing was made with them any more. Now that everyone knew the truth about the nature of mako, materia weren't being produced any more and the existing ones were rarely used. People had a tendency to panic when they saw magic these days, fearing its use would cause the planet to retaliate again.

Bolt 3 was a powerful spell, beyond the ability of most people to cast. It was more than powerful enough to fuse the door into the rock around it, leaving it glassy and solid. Nodding in satisfaction, Cloud dropped his hand and turned his back on it. Nobody would be able to get in easily now, but if he needed to he could still blast it free again.

"Nice casting," Zack complimented him, raising an eyebrow as he watched Cloud return. He was impressed, and it showed how much Cloud had improved from the awkward young boy Zack had once worked with. Back then Cloud probably wouldn't even have been able to cast the second level Bolt spell, but he didn't look the least bit drained now after casting Bolt 3.

He had to keep reminding himself that Cloud was effectively a SOLDIER now. He'd had the same mako treatments they got, and then some. For that matter, Zack was going to have to relearn his own abilities and limitations, because it was a damn sure bet Hojo had changed _something_.

Later, though. All of that could wait until later, if they weren't going to have to be running from Shinra troops. Zack still couldn't quite wrap his mind around that one, but he trusted that Cloud knew what he was doing.

"Did you ride a chocobo up here?" Zack asked, tilting his head. "We're going to make an interesting spectacle, trying to ride double."

Snorting in amusement at the mental image, Cloud smiled slightly again. "No. I only take them out if I'm going somewhere really inaccessible by bike, or where there are still a lot of big monsters around when I don't feel like fighting. We'll still have to ride double, but Fenrir's big enough for both of us."

"Off-road bike, huh? Sounds like fun," Zack said, grinning. "Lead the way, then!"

The bike wasn't far, and Zack whistled appreciatively when he saw it. "Sweet wheels. Custom job?" he asked, running his hand over the exhaust pipes and crouching to get a better look at the engine. "What the hell is this? That's not a mako engine." He poked at the unfamiliar configuration, baffled. "What does it run on?"

"Everything is a custom job these days," Cloud told him softly, standing back and letting his friend check it over. "It runs on refined oil. Not nearly as efficient and clean as mako, but..." But the reactors had all been shut down, and you couldn't buy mako for love or money these days. They were slowly developing alternative sources of energy, but being set back more than fifty years in terms of energy technology had been a painful blow to the world. He didn't want to explain that just yet. He also didn't mention that he'd built it mostly with parts scavenged from the ruin of Shinra's warehouses, because that would require going into more detail about why they were ruined.

"We can make you one, too," he added almost shyly. The hours he'd spent working on the bike had been soothing, letting him concentrate on nothing more complicated or life-threatening than connecting hoses to valves and making sure they worked. He couldn't think of anything he would enjoy doing more than sitting around with Zack, putting a bike together. There were still plenty of parts around, if you knew the right places to look. "If you want."

"Sounds like a plan," Zack agreed, his eyes lighting up as he stood and dusted his hands off. "I don't suppose you're going to let me drive?"

"In your dreams," Cloud retorted, his smile growing. "You get to ride pillion for once." Moving over to it, he hit the release for the sides, and Zack jumped out of the way as the holders for the pieces of First Tsurugi opened out. Pulling the sword out of the holster at his hip, Cloud quickly broke it apart and slipped the pieces in where they belonged before shutting the sides again.

"Okay, I want a really good look at that sword sometime soon," Zack said, fascinated. "And I want to see you fight with it. What good is a sword that comes apart?"

Cloud's smile turned into something closer to a smirk. "You'll see." Finally, _finally_ he was going to be able to face Zack on equal terms! Some of his returning memories were of sparring sessions, and he remembered his frustration with the fact that Zack had always had to hold back for him. Not any more. Hades, Cloud might even beat him. He'd taken on Sephiroth multiple times, after all, and Sephiroth had been better than Zack.

The reminder made his smile vanish and the light in his eyes fade, and he tugged on his goggles quickly before Zack could ask about the sudden change. "Climb on," he invited as he slung his leg over the bike and settled himself.

Deciding that now was not the time to ask, Zack nodded and slid onto the seat behind the blond. This felt decidedly odd; they'd ridden together often enough in the past, but it had always been Cloud clinging to _his_ back, not the other way around. Odd, but not unpleasant. Grinning, Zack set his hands on Cloud's hips and tucked his feet up as they pulled away from the lab door.

No, not unpleasant in the least. Zack was delighted to discover that Cloud drove like a SOLDIER, with a reckless abandonment that would have been suicidal in anyone with slower reflexes. Whooping with glee at the feel of the wind on his face and in his hair, Zack hung on to Cloud's waist and revelled in it.

Hearing Zack shout with joy like that brought Cloud's smile right back again, and he dismissed his dark thoughts for the moment. It was impossible to brood when Zack was around and obviously enjoying himself. He nudged the throttle to coax a bit more speed from the bike, racing down the mountain trail towards the main road. Zack moved with him on the turns as easily as if they shared one mind, and Cloud let himself just enjoy it.

They reached the flatlands far too soon. Cloud could have kept going for days with only the rushing wind and Zack's laughter for company. Once they reached the plains Zack settled down against him, no longer cheering and egging him on, and they passed the rest of the trip in companionable silence.

Kalm was pretty much the way Zack remembered it, a quaint little village that capitalized on its differences from Midgar to attract tourists and troops on leave. At the same time there were some major changes, most notably the utter lack of anyone or anything bearing the Shinra logo. His memories weren't _that_ fuzzy, and he knew the place should have been crawling with troops in Shinra blue.

There were also signs of recent reconstruction on most of the buildings, as if something had happened to damage everything at once. The damage pattern wasn't right for a fire, and this was the wrong area for earthquakes. Even the monsters in this area were weak enough that they shouldn't have been able to cause that sort of chaos.

"What happened?" he asked as Cloud slowed the bike to a more respectable pace, in order to keep from terrorizing the pedestrians and the rare other drivers. "More of the long story?"

"Yeah," Cloud nodded, glancing at the damage and shrugging. Kalm had fared surprisingly well, especially compared to Midgar. The damage wrought by the meeting of Holy and Meteor had been compounded by the sudden loss of mako energy and everything that ran on it. Humans were remarkably resilient, but it would take time before the last of the scars were erased, even here.

Pulling up outside the inn, he swung off the bike and pulled the goggles off. He put the first three pieces of First Tsurugi together again, but hesitated before slipping it into its sheath. Turning, he offered it to Zack. "Here. Until we can get you a sword," he offered.

"Why, something happen to my old one?" Zack asked, surprised. He took the offered blades, testing the weight and balance of them and deciding they - it? - would work well enough. "I thought you said you had it in Midgar."

"It's not in very good shape any more," Cloud admitted with a wince. Two years on the cliff had weathered the blade badly. He'd never thought he would use it again, preferring to leave it as a marker for what he'd _thought_ was the place where its owner had died.

Taking the last three pieces of his sword, he put them into their holders at his hip and locked the bike up. He wasn't actually anticipating any trouble, but he'd learned a long time ago never to go anywhere without at least one weapon. His vague memories of working with Zack suggested the older man was probably the same way.

"So, what's your first priority?" Cloud asked as they walked up the steps and into the inn. "Food, a bath, sleep, or the story?"

"Tough choice," Zack replied, considering. "I want to say 'story', but in all honesty I think the bath and food are going to have to come first. Sleep can wait until later. I didn't do much but doze when I was in the tanks anyway." It had been easier to just let himself sleep or drift off into the whispers of the mako than try to hold himself together.

Cloud remembered that well enough from his days in the lab, so he nodded. "All right. Why don't you..."

He hesitated, torn. The obvious thing to do was suggest that Zack grab his bath while Cloud scrounged up food - and alcohol. But that meant splitting up and losing sight of his friend.

 _Get a grip_ , he ordered himself firmly. Either this was real, in which case Zack wasn't going to vanish the moment Cloud turned his back. Or it was a dream, in which case... well, he'd like to keep dreaming as long as possible, but he'd wake up eventually, whether or not Zack was right beside him.

"You go up and clean up, and I'll get us food and the like," Cloud forced himself to say reluctantly.

No more anxious to be separated than Cloud was, Zack grimaced but admitted it was the best course of action. He was truly desperate for a bath, since he hadn't had a chance to clean up after being in the mako tank. His hair was a mess of wild spikes, and he could still feel traces of the mako on his skin. Anyway, following the blond around like a lost puppy was a bit more pathetic than he wanted to be.

"All right," he agreed, just as reluctantly. Hearing the same grudging tone in his own voice that had been in Cloud's, Zack had to laugh. "We make a fine pair, don't we? Tell you what. I promise I'll still be there if you will." He offered his hand.

Looking at it for a moment, Cloud finally gave the older man that little smile again and took it in his. "Deal," he agreed, squeezing Zack's fingers as the brunet did the same. It was still hard to turn his back and walk away, but Zack had never broken a promise to him yet. That he remembered, anyway.

It took longer for Cloud to get the food and alcohol than he'd anticipated. When he'd approached the tavern part of the inn, he'd frozen on being asked what he'd like to have for dinner. Presumably at one point he'd known Zack's preferences for that sort of thing, but he hadn't the first clue now. He'd finally just ordered some of everything, grateful the menu was limited, but it was a stark reminder of everything that had changed.

By the time Cloud made it upstairs to their room Zack had emerged from a blissfully hot shower and was sitting on the edge of one bed, finger-combing his hair. The dark strands still tended to spike oddly, especially at the back, but they were at least somewhat less disorganized than before. He could have stayed in the shower forever, except that the hot water had run out far too quickly.

"Hey," he greeted the younger man as Cloud came in with a tray full of food that smelled delicious. Actually, Shinra field rations would probably have looked pretty good to him after years of the gruel they'd fed him in the labs, so it was a little hard for him to judge the quality of the food. "Whatever that is, I hope you've got plenty of it, because I'm starving."

"There's lots," Cloud assured him, brow furrowed as he walked with his eyes on the food to avoid spilling any of the over-full plates. "And more where that came from if we need it. Go easy, though. You don't want to make yourself..." He glanced up once he'd set the tray down, and the words died in his mouth as his throat closed. Zack was dressed in nothing but the stolen pants and a towel around his shoulders. He'd lost some of the muscle definition in his chest and arms from spending so long inactive, but less than Cloud might have expected. He'd been in too much shock to really pay attention back in the lab. Zack looked... he looked...

A fierce blush crept its way over Cloud's face, and he ducked his head again and had to brace himself against the table as another wash of memories flooded him. It seemed he'd had a rather painful crush on his best friend, the existence of which he'd forgotten about until just that moment. In all honesty it didn't really surprise him, despite the fact that he hadn't consciously realized he had any interest in other men.

After all, who _wouldn't_ have a crush on Zack?

Concerned by the way Cloud had gone abruptly silent and then leaned against the table like he was dizzy, Zack left off fussing with his hair and stood to make his way to the younger man's side. The bright red shade of the blond's face wasn't reassuring. "You okay, kid?" he asked putting a hand on Cloud's shoulder to steady him.

"Yeah," Cloud said hastily, flushing darker and hoping his thoughts hadn't been written all over his face. None of his newly returned memories indicated whether or not Zack had _known_ about the crush, and this wasn't exactly the way he'd like the man to find out. "I'm fine. It's just... memories." He shook his head and straightened, pressing the back of his hand to his heated face. "Every so often I'll look at you, and something will trigger all these memories that I'd thought were gone forever. It's disorienting."

"Ah." Yeah, Zack could understand that. He hadn't actually lost any memories - he didn't think - but he'd lost enough details from many of them that he could imagine what having them suddenly return would be like. "How much had you lost?"

"Everything from the first time I left Nibelheim to when the three of us returned, pretty much," Cloud said, a touch bitterly. "And even the later part is scrambled. For a long time I didn't remember you at all... I thought I _was_ you." That was hard to admit. How awful was it to forget your best friend, the person who'd gone through hell to rescue your unresponsive body, and then to steal his very life? "I went around telling everyone I was a SOLDIER. I believed it."

"Mako can fuck with your head that way," Zack told him softly, squeezing his shoulder. "At least you kept the first part of your life. You didn't forget who you were entirely. But who can blame you for not wanting to remember all the shit you'd been through, and editing it so you came out looking a little better? I'm flattered you picked me."

Astonished, Cloud stared at him. That was so far from any of the reactions he'd expected that he didn't quite know how to process it. "Zack, I _forgot_ you," he said, his voice cracking with stress. "I stole your life and forgot about you! How can you be _flattered_?"

"Cloud, you were catatonic for the better part of a _year_ after I got you out of there," Zack said patiently. "It's a miracle you ever came out of it at all, let alone with your childhood intact. If thinking you were me is what got you through it, then I'm glad I could help even though I wasn't there! Besides." He grinned. "If you'd completely forgotten about me, then you couldn't think you _were_ me. You remembered, it just got a little scrambled."

Realizing he was trembling, Cloud sank down in the nearest chair before he did something embarrassing like have his knees give out on him. Just like that, a part of the heavy weight of guilt he'd carried for so long was gone. Zack wasn't upset that Cloud had forgotten him. "You're very strange," he informed the other man gruffly, turning his attention to their dinner so Zack wouldn't see the dazed look in his eyes.

Patting his shoulder, Zack moved to the other chair and flopped down across from him. "So people keep telling me," he admitted cheerfully. Under his outward merriment he was concerned, unsure why Cloud seemed so shaken. "Anyway, after listening to me babbling in your ear for most of a year, it's no wonder you got messed up. So if you thought you were me, did you go straight to Aerith? How _did_ you survive that attack, anyway?"

He'd certainly talked often enough about how he was bringing Cloud to Midgar so Aerith could fix him. If Cloud had been awake and aware when they'd escaped, Midgar would have been the absolute _last_ place in the world Zack would have headed for. But somehow he'd just known that Aerith would be able to help the boy, bring him back from where he was trapped inside his own head.

It had, of course, occurred to him that Aerith would probably have another boyfriend after he'd been missing for five years, but there also had never been a doubt in his mind that she would drop everything to help him if he asked it of her. That was just the way she was.

The mention of his one-time girlfriend had apparently been a mistake, though, because Cloud hunched in on himself like he'd just taken a blow. That worried Zack more than anything had yet. "Cloud?"

"No," Cloud replied, shaking his head and picking at his food. "I didn't remember her at all. They left me for dead on the cliff, next to you. I woke up just enough to take your sword and haul myself down into the city, then I collapsed again. How did _you_ survive?" That was the part that had been eating at him, that made him still half certain this was a dream. "You were _dead_ , I remember! I saw it my..."

For the second time that night he broke off in mid-sentence. A horrible thought had just occurred to him. Had he _checked_? He remembered seeing Zack fall, and crawling forward to get the sword, but had he stopped and actually looked to see if the older boy was dead?

Why would he have? At that point he'd been barely aware of anything around him, and hadn't even remembered Zack _existed_. "I didn't check," he said, stunned. "I didn't even... gods. How could I have been so careless?"

"From what little I know, I'm not sure it would have done you much good even if you had," Zack shrugged. "I was more than half dead when they got me. You couldn't have carried me to Midgar in the state you were in. If you'd stuck around, you'd just have been recaptured right along with me and we might never have gotten out. Don't worry about it, kid. Under the circumstances, you did exactly the right thing - armed yourself and got the hell out of there, so you could come back for me later. You just got a little sidetracked along the way."

There wasn't a trace of blame in Zack's voice, because he _did_ think Cloud had done the right thing. Never mind that if their positions had been reversed, he'd have died rather than leave Cloud behind - he'd proved that several times over by refusing to give up on the comatose boy during the time they were on the run. If he hadn't been carrying Cloud, Shinra would never have caught him. But Zack freely admitted that he could be stupidly stubborn sometimes, and he didn't encourage others to follow his example.

"So if you made it to Midgar and collapsed again, then what?" he wanted to know. "You're lucky somebody didn't stab you in the back and steal all your stuff."

"Tifa found me," Cloud told him. "She recognized me and took me back to her place to help me." If not for that, he wasn't sure he'd have even remembered what his name was. It was seeing her that had jarred a cascade of memories back into his empty mind - much the same way having Zack around kept doing now.

"Tifa!" Zack lit up, sitting straighter in his seat in excitement. "Tifa Lockheart? She survived? That's fantastic! I was sure she had to be dead, after what Sephiroth did to her. What in the name of the Ancients was she doing in Midgar?"

Blinking, Cloud shook his head. He kept forgetting that Tifa and Zack had met - a lingering effect of his one-time conviction that _he_ had been the SOLDIER assigned to Nibelheim with Sephiroth, not Zack.

But this was getting into territory that he didn't want to discuss yet. "Eat," he said, pointing at Zack's food. "I'll tell you everything, I promise. But if I start now, you won't eat, and you said you were hungry."

"Oh, right." Sheepish, Zack grabbed a couple of the plates and dug in, savouring the rich taste and varied textures of the food. _Real_ food. It was the next thing to heaven. Cloud had been right to caution him against making himself sick, though. His stomach just wasn't used to handling this sort of food any more. Far sooner than he would have liked he was forced to push aside the rest of the meal.

Glancing across the table, he frowned as he realized Cloud had hardly touched his plate. Well, Zack was about to put him through what was obviously going to be a very painful retelling of events. If he wasn't hungry, it probably wasn't surprising.

"So? Talk," he said when he was done, giving Cloud a level gaze. "Or do I have to get a few shots of alcohol into you first?"

"Maybe," Cloud admitted, grateful to stop pretending he was trying to eat. He shoved the remains of dinner to the side of the table, leaving room for the bottles of vodka he'd brought along with the food. "I don't know where to start."

"Start with whatever comes to mind," Zack suggested, pouring a couple of glasses and passing one to the blond. As he watched Cloud drink half of his like it was water, he debated with himself. He had a sinking feeling the answer to his most burning question was going to be bad, but he needed to know. "Cloud? What happened to Aerith? You flinch every time I mention her. Did you ever find her?"

Sure enough, the younger man winced and proved his point for him, draining the rest of his glass and pouring another before he answered. "I found her by accident, if you can believe it," Cloud said, his voice rough with more than just the alcohol. "I fell through the roof of the church right into the flowers. I don't think she recognized me at first, but then later she kept asking pointed questions about whether I knew you. I think maybe she was trying to jog my memory."

He swallowed, and his eyes went distant, staring into his vodka like it held the answers to the universe if he could just look deep enough. "Did you know she was half Cetra? An Ancient?"

"She's a what?" Wide-eyed, Zack stared at him. He wanted to protest that statements like that were only going to convince him he was dreaming again, but half a dozen odd memories popped into his mind that stopped him. The way Aerith could get anything to grow, anywhere. The way the flowers seemed to respond to her like she was better than the sun. The way she would stand sometimes when she thought he wasn't watching her, just listening to nothing he could hear. And her unbelievable sensitivity to mako.

It would explain a hell of a lot. Like why Shinra was so desperate to get their hands on her. Zack had been able to offer her a certain amount of protection while she was his girlfriend, but he wondered how she'd fared against the Turks once he'd been reported missing.

Then the true impact of Cloud's words sank in. "Was?" he repeated weakly. That was it, then. She was gone. Part of him had known from Cloud's reactions, but he'd been hoping he was wrong. With a grimace he downed his own glass of vodka, welcoming the burn of it to help cover the tight feeling in his chest.

Taking a deep breath, Cloud clenched his hands around his glass and started to talk. Slowly, painfully, he got the entire story out, lubricated by enough vodka to kill anyone without a SOLDIER's metabolism and leaving Zack sitting quietly in numb disbelief. It was an unbelievable tale, and if it had been anyone but Cloud telling it Zack would have laughed in their face and called them a liar. Hell, he'd have accused Cloud of making it up if the younger man's pain hadn't been so obvious.

Cloud left nothing out. Not his reluctance to get involved or his repeated attempts to give up, not the way he'd handed the black materia over to Sephiroth, not even the fact that _he_ had very nearly been the one to kill Aerith. He even told Zack what he'd admitted to no one else; the dreams - if they were dreams - that he had of Aerith in the Lifestream. That she'd told him it wasn't time for him to be there yet, and sent him back.

It was actually much easier for Zack to accept the idea there was such a thing as the Lifestream, and that Cloud had been in and out of it multiple times and had conversed with Aerith's ghost while doing so, than all the rest of it. Sephiroth repeatedly coming back to life, Jenova's true identity and her part in Sephiroth's creation, Shinra's collapse and the near destruction of the world were a hell of a tall tale. The three silver-haired men who could absorb materia into their own bodies and transform into Sephiroth were even harder to swallow.

But he had to either accept that it was true, or conclude that Cloud had gone completely around the bend. Scary as it was, the story held too much internal consistency for him to believe it existed only in Cloud's mind, and besides it explained the odd lack of Shinra troops in Kalm and the fact that nobody seemed to be using mako any more. Zack certainly couldn't think of an explanation for Shinra's abrupt disappearance that made any more sense than what Cloud was telling him.

And damned if he wouldn't put it past Sephiroth to _be_ just stubborn enough to be able to hold himself together in the Lifestream and keep finding ways to come back.

By the end of the story, Zack had drunk nearly as much as Cloud and was in a state of shock. "I'm glad she did," he said in response to Cloud's revelation about his latest dip in the Lifestream. "I'd have been left to rot in that place, otherwise. Maybe she knew."

"Maybe she did," Cloud agreed, startled by the thought. It certainly made more sense than any other reason he'd come up with for why she'd refused to let him stay with her in heaven. "So now you know everything I do. And more than most people ever will." He rubbed his face, startled to feel wetness on his cheeks. He'd been crying quietly for much of the story, and hadn't even realized it.

"It's a lot to take in," Zack said, fiddling with his glass. "I'm going to have to sit on it for a while before I'll be able to absorb it all, I think." That was an understatement. When Cloud had told him he'd missed 'a lot', the younger man hadn't been kidding!

But there was one thing he did know, without needing to think about it. "I'm proud of you, kid," he told Cloud. "Really damn proud. You did good. Better than I would have, maybe. I'm not sure I could have held up under all that and still kept going."

"What?" Startled, Cloud jerked his head up and stared at Zack. Once again Zack was reacting in exactly the opposite manner Cloud had expected. "I got Aerith killed and helped Sephiroth nearly destroy the world! What is there to be _proud_ of?" He shook his head. "Of course you would have done better than I did. You managed to hold yourself together and get us out of the lab and most of the way to Midgar, while I sat around and drooled. You're a hundred times stronger than I am, you always have been."

"Nobody ever really knows if they'll be strong enough to get through adversity until it happens to them," Zack shrugged. "Maybe I'd have held up, or maybe it would have been the last straw. I didn't do so hot at fighting back these last three years. I gave up when they told me you were dead. But you did better than could be expected of _anyone_ , and I _am_ proud of you. And proud to call you my friend."

His eyes were warm, his expression just a little wistful. If he was lucky, they'd be able to rebuild their friendship even better than before. Zack wanted that bad enough to be able to taste it. He knew Cloud had always wondered why he'd taken the scrawny private under his wing; it was because of all the people in Shinra, Cloud had been the only one willing to treat him as a friend _first_ , and a SOLDIER second. After everything they'd both been through, having each other to trust and rely on again would feel a lot like winning.

Stunned, Cloud just sat there looking at him for long minutes. The younger man could hardly countenance the idea that Zack might not have done as well as Cloud had. But there was no arguing with the conviction in the SOLDIER's voice when he said that he was proud of Cloud. He could think Zack was insane for feeling it, but he had to believe the older man meant it.

And that gave him a warm feeling inside that was so unfamiliar he almost didn't recognize it for what it was. Delight. Delight, and an answering pride, and a bit of awe. He'd looked up to Zack for so long that getting approval from him on this level was just about the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Drawing a shaky breath, he managed to give Zack a small but genuine smile. Gods, he hadn't smiled this much in a long time. "Well, I've always been proud to have you as a friend," he said, his voice only a little rough. "Even when you were at your most irritating. So now what?"

"Now we finish off the alcohol, while trading stories about our time in Shinra to help jog each other's memories," Zack declared, reaching for his bottle again. "Then we're going to crash, sleep like logs, and tomorrow we'll head off to Midgar to start fresh. Together." He grinned. "I may be a little late in delivering what I kept promising you while we were on the run, but better late than never." He lifted his full glass. "To you and me, kid, and a brand new start."

His heart shining in his eyes, Cloud lifted his glass and knocked it against Zack's. "To you and me," he agreed, his smile widening. He couldn't remember ever being happier to make a toast. Nothing short of death was going to separate them again, he swore to himself. After everything their friendship had already survived, it would take an act of the gods to tear them apart now.


	3. Chapter 3

It wasn't surprising that Cloud suffered from nightmares that night; indeed, he'd have been shocked if they'd been absent. A lot of bad memories and feelings had been dredged up, and he was prone to bad dreams even without that extra provocation. He'd expected visions of the lab, or maybe a looped replay of the moments on the cliff when Zack had been shot out from under him. Or possibly the old nightmare of Nibelheim in flames.

Instead he got Sephiroth, with his mocking smile and the gleam of madness in his eyes, taunting and tormenting him. They fought endlessly, and Cloud struggled and struggled to best the bastard, but all to no avail. Sephiroth stayed eternally just out of his reach, masamune's length allowing him to make hit after hit on Cloud while the blond swung at nothing but air. It was like the worst moments of all of their fights combined, and through it all Cloud had to face Sephiroth's condescending laughter spearing through him to hurt worse than any sword.

As many times as Cloud had faced and defeated the man, Sephiroth still treated every one of their encounters as if Cloud was so far beneath him that it was more like the former general was playing rather than fighting. No matter how much Cloud improved, how many times he _killed_ the bastard, it always felt as if Sephiroth was completely in control of their battles until the moment when luck or sheer stubbornness allowed Cloud to get a hand up on him. And in his nightmares, that moment never came.

Like a mouse being toyed with by a cat, Cloud fought with a despairing certainty that nothing he did was ever going to change the outcome. Because even if he won this time, Sephiroth would just find _another_ way to come back.

The worst part of the dreams was that he didn't wake from them. Normally Cloud's nightmares would eventually send him bolting up out of his bed in a cold sweat, panting and shaking but safe in the real world once more. This time they just went on and on, one futile battle after another, without even the escape of waking.

When he did finally manage to open his eyes, he found sunlight streaming in through the cracks of the shuttered windows. He'd slept through the night and most of the morning, judging by the angle of the beams. Well, what had been left of the night by the time he and Zack had finally collapsed into the beds, drunk off their asses and half lost in the delight of the memories they'd managed to remind each other of.

Maybe that was why he hadn't been woken by his dreams, Cloud considered, his thoughts muzzy from the after effects of the alcohol. He'd been drunk enough that 'passing out' probably would have been a more accurate description than 'falling asleep'.

Seeing Cloud moving, Zack yawned and rolled over. "Hey." He kept his voice soft in deference to his hangover - and to the hangover he knew Cloud probably had as well - but it still made the younger man jump. Blinking at him from his own bed a few feet away, Zack raised an eyebrow. "You okay? You seem a little twitchy."

"Nightmares," Cloud explained shortly, and Zack nodded in understanding. "I feel like I haven't slept at all. What about you?"

"About the same," Zack admitted wryly, stretching and working his way out of the sheets that had gotten tangled around him. He'd dreamed of being back in the lab, which wasn't too surprising. It was a struggle to convince himself that it _had_ been just a dream, and not glimpses of reality between hallucinations of Cloud rescuing him. The fact that time seemed to be proceeding in a continuous and reasonable manner was about the only thing that made him sure this was real.

Well, that and the hangover. SOLDIER metabolism was fast enough that they didn't suffer the truly awful effects most people would have after drinking that much alcohol, but it didn't leave them entirely immune. Zack couldn't remember ever dreaming about having a hangover before.

Figuring Cloud could probably use that sort of logical reassurance as well, Zack grinned and said as much. "I'm starting to think maybe this is real after all. The headache is pretty convincing."

"Yeah." Squeezing his eyes shut against the stabs of pain caused by a sunbeam trickling over his face, Cloud scrunched himself deeper into his blankets. "I don't suppose Heal works on them, does it? Or Restore?"

"Nope, 'fraid not," Zack told him ruefully. "Probably just as well. Otherwise everyone would die of liver poisoning. What's the plan for today? Are we just hiding in here or what?"

"It's tempting," Cloud muttered, rubbing his face with one hand. He was _so_ tired. Yesterday had been exhausting on so many levels, and his sleep hadn't exactly been restful. It wasn't as if anyone would worry if he didn't come home; he'd told Tifa he was making a delivery run and those could often take days, if not weeks.

But Zack was _alive_ and even if this was real and the older man wasn't going to vanish, staying in bed meant giving up a whole day he could have spent with his friend making up for lost time. It felt like a sin to waste even a moment, when he'd never thought he would have any moments ever again.

Groaning, he shoved himself up out of the blankets, swinging his feet around to the floor and scrubbing at his tired eyes. Apparently he'd stripped down to his boxers at some point, though he didn't remember doing it. At least it was more comfortable than sleeping in his clothes and armour, though it wouldn't have been the first time and probably wouldn't have been the last if he'd done so.

"We've got too much to do, as much as I'd like to," he said wearily. The small smile he offered Zack wasn't in the least bit reluctant, though. Zack was still here. It was real. It was all _real_.

And Tifa was going to have a heart attack.

The thought made Cloud's lips twitch with laughter, and helped chase some of his exhaustion away. This was going to be an interesting day, all right. Eyes bright, he went hunting for his discarded clothes to take with him into the bathroom so he could shower.

Slipping out of the bed, Zack stretched and revelled in the pull of his muscles. He was sore; hanging onto Cloud on the bike had been more effort than he'd made in a very long time. The only reason he hadn't withered away into nothing was the enhancement and preservative properties of the mako. But the soreness was just one more thing to remind him that he wasn't in the tank any more, so he welcomed it.

Like Cloud, he'd stripped down before falling into bed the night before. Unlike Cloud he hadn't been wearing anything under the pants, so he was naked now. The idea of wearing someone else's - possibly dirty, since he doubted laundry had been a high priority for the techs - underwear had _not_ been appealing. Zack had never had much body modesty to start with, though, and what little he'd once possessed had been beaten out of him during the war in Wutai. Privacy had been a non-existent commodity in the Shinra camps.

So he thought nothing of it, until he saw the way Cloud's gaze skittered over him as the younger man blushed and all but fled into the shower. Zack paused, blinked at the closed door to the bathroom, and then grinned. "Oh, right," he murmured to himself in amusement, gathering up his stolen clothes and dressing. "How could I forget about _that_?"

Maybe his memories were more faulty than he'd realized if he'd forgotten about Cloud's crush on him, because it had been blindingly obvious from day one. Now that he was thinking about it he could remember hundreds of times when the boy had gone blushing and tongue-tied around him, frantic blue eyes looking anywhere but at whatever had set him off.

It had been mostly hero-worship, with a healthy dose of the intensity brought about by emerging teenage hormones and compounded by the fact that as far as Zack could tell, he'd been the kid's first real friend. It had been flattering but inappropriate, since Zack had been the boy's commanding officer, and he had done his best to discourage it gently. That had been made more difficult by the fact that Cloud had tended to take any sign of rejection as an indication that Zack was finally getting bored with their friendship, the poor insecure bastard.

He'd also made very certain that Cloud never realized that Zack knew about it. Zack still remembered the pain and potential for humiliation of his own first crush, after all; it was hard to forget, when he'd worked so closely with Sephiroth. Thank all the gods he'd gotten over it quickly once he'd made SOLDIER, or his job could have become a real nightmare. The general had never seemed to notice; to this day Zack wasn't sure if the man had deliberately not seen it the same way Zack had ignored Cloud's crush, or if he'd truly been unaware of it in that odd socially inept way of his.

Not that it mattered now. His amused grin faded somewhat at the reminder of how much everything had changed. Sephiroth was not and never would be a friend again, even if he managed to find another way to return to life. Which Zack sincerely hoped he did _not_ ; not only had Cloud clearly been devastated by every time he'd had to kill the man he'd once worshipped as a hero, but Zack had no desire to have to fight someone he'd once considered a good friend.

Some things were still the same, though, and what remained of Zack's grin turned fond as he thought of the way Cloud's cheeks had flamed at the sight of him naked. Funny that the younger man was _still_ suffering the effects of the crush even all these years later. Zack would have expected him to have grown out of it by now.

Then again, when would he have had a chance? Considering everything that had happened in the intervening time, Cloud had never had an opportunity to outgrow those early teenaged feelings. He'd probably get over it quickly enough now, once his subconscious mind realized his hormones weren't throwing him into a tizzy every time Zack was around.

In the meantime, it was both adorable and endearing the way the younger man had flushed at the sight of him, and it was also something reassuringly familiar.

Poking at the remains of dinner, Zack grimaced at the unappetizing congealed mess. There was no way they would be able to scrounge breakfast from the leftovers, and he was starving again.

Glancing at the bathroom door, Zack debated. It had been quite a bit easier to let Cloud out of his sight this time. He was growing more and more convinced that this was real, and having Cloud leave and return once made it easier to let him do it a second time. The more often they did it, the less it would worry them, and they couldn't stay attached at the hip forever.

"I'm going to grab breakfast!" he called through the door, gathering up the discarded plates and heading for the stairs.

Blessedly unaware of Zack's thoughts about Cloud and his crush, the object of said thoughts was leaning against the shower wall, thumping his head into the tiles. "Great, just great," he muttered to himself, hoping the noise of the water would keep Zack from overhearing him. "You swoon when you see him shirtless and blush like a little girl when he gets naked. When exactly did you get your balls cut off?"

Actually, he might be acting like a damn girl, but he wouldn't have this problem in the first place if he'd lost his balls somewhere along the way. Damn his hormones. Damn his body, suddenly wanting things he hadn't thought about in too long, and wanting them _badly_. Damn this stupid crush that he couldn't shake no matter how hard he tried. And most of all damn Zack, for being so unthinkingly, breathtakingly attractive!

Turning and ducking his head to put it under the spray, Cloud continued to curse himself. He needed to get a grip before he made a complete idiot of himself in front of his friend. It was difficult, though, when he kept getting waves of memories returning, mostly of the other things that had caused him to react in a similar fashion. Zack had always been both disturbingly immodest about his body and distressingly prone to touching. Cloud wasn't sixteen any more, damn it, he shouldn't be reacting like he was still a randy teenager.

He was, though. Maybe it was just that he'd had so little of that sort of contact in his life, and so it remained startlingly new and intense. His attempt at a relationship with Tifa had fallen apart long before it ever got to the truly intimate stages, for which he was both regretful and grateful. Regretful because he really did love her, and having her look at him that way had been literally a dream come true. Grateful because between his heavy emotional baggage and the need to hide the onset of his geostigma from her he just hadn't been able to give her what she needed and deserved, and it would have hurt her a hell of a lot more when he'd left if they'd made it as far as sleeping together.

With the geostigma gone and a large part of his guilt lifted by Aerith's forgiveness, of course, Cloud could have made another attempt. He had no doubt Tifa would make him pay for just leaving her like that, but he also knew she would have taken him in again without a second thought. Something had held him back, though. He'd thought it was the fear of what else could go wrong with his body thanks to Hojo's experiments on him, and that was still a very real concern. But now he had to wonder how much of his reluctance to get serious might have been subconscious memories of his lingering crush on Zack.

Whether it had been or not, his current problem was a bit more immediate than what to do about Tifa. The geostigma had only been visible on his arm, but it had left him feeling ill enough most of the time that he hadn't even touched himself in months. He was paying for it now, so hard it was painful. He could just turn the water on cold, of course, but he _hated_ cold showers. And he wasn't sure it would work long anyway, when they were about to spend several hours riding on the bike with Zack pressed against his back again.

Gods, how many hours had Cloud spent on Zack's bike trying to hold himself just far enough away that the older boy wouldn't notice his reaction, and guiltily enjoying the close contact at the same time? Too many. Way, way too many, judging by the memories now flooding him once again.

Groaning, he reached for the hot water tap, pausing just before he twisted it off. There was still the problem of facing the ride, and he didn't think cold water would cut it. This might well be the last chance for real privacy he would have for a while, maybe he should take advantage of it...

Shaking his head, he growled. He couldn't believe he was even thinking about it, because Zack was _right there_ on the other side of the door and Cloud of all people knew just how good a SOLDIER's hearing could be.

That thought triggered a whole new cascade of embarrassing memories. His eyes widened as he realized how many times Zack must have been _listening_ when Cloud had thought he was safe on the other side of a wall or in a different tent and the pressures of his body had become too much to resist. The older boy had never said anything or given any indication that he knew what Cloud had been up to, thank all the gods. It had never even occurred to Cloud that a SOLDIER's enhanced senses might make a difference. Maybe by some miracle Zack had been asleep every time.

Frantically he tried to at least remember if he'd ever done anything monumentally stupid like calling out Zack's name. He didn't think so, but so many of those memories were still fuzzy at the edges that it was hard to be sure. Please gods let him not have given himself away like that.

All of which meant he really, absolutely should not indulge himself now. No matter how much his body was pleading for it, the needs he'd been ignoring for too long suddenly rearing their head with a vengeance. And he would just keep telling himself that for as long as it took him to remove the hand he had apparently wrapped around himself at some point in his thought process.

Hips jerking as he realized what he was doing, Cloud swallowed a moan and yanked his hand away from his cock. The sudden loss of sensation made his knees threaten to buckle and he pressed himself back against the tiles of the wall for support. They were cooler than the water but not anywhere near enough to take the heat from his body. What the hell was wrong with him? He really was acting like a damn teenager.

Blue eyes unfocused, he stared at the shower door and just stood there for a long moment, chest heaving as he panted for air. He needed to either bite the bullet and turn the hot water off or swallow his pride and finish it, or he was never going to get out of this shower. Unreasonable or not, his body was obviously not going to let him be until he did _something_. And he still hated cold showers.

After so long the feel of skin on skin was almost unfamiliar, and uncomfortably intense. Cloud closed his hand hesitantly over his cock, hissing through his teeth at the sensation as he stroked slowly. Trying not to think about Zack was a futile endeavour, so he finally gave in and just let the memories flow over him. He'd apparently had rather a lot of... creative fantasies involving the SOLDIER, and if the idea of jerking off to a memory of a fantasy was a little odd, it wasn't any less effective.

Biting his lip to stifle the noises that threatened to escape him, Cloud shivered and sped his pace. It felt so good he didn't want it to end, but he also didn't want Zack getting worried about how long he was taking and coming to check on him.

The thought of Zack walking in and catching him at this turned into a mental image of the older man looking first surprised, then aroused, and joining him in the shower. Imagining his hand was Zack's, Cloud closed his eyes to better preserve the illusion and tipped his head back against the wall, the spray from the shower misting over his face.

Eight years ago it had been hard to convince himself that it was Zack's hand on him; his hands had been smaller and weaker, without the hard ridges of callous from the constant sword drilling that Zack did. Now, though, Cloud's hands were just as he remembered Zack's being, and that made it a lot easier. Between that and how long it had been, in an embarrassingly short period of time he was gasping and shuddering against the wall, his hips jerking as he drove himself into his hand.

The metallic taste of copper exploded over Cloud's tongue as he bit right into his lip when he came, trying to keep from making any telltale noises. The minor pain was completely lost in the wash of pleasure, and despite his best efforts a deep groan escaped him.

As the last of the spasms faded he leaned against the wall and just tried to remember how to breathe properly. The water washed away the evidence of what he'd done, and all that was left was the lingering lassitude in his limbs and the sharp spot of pain that came whenever he touched his tongue to where he'd bitten his lip. It would fade soon enough, he certainly didn't need to waste a potion or a cure spell on it, but he was almost tempted anyway. As long as it remained, it would be a guilty reminder of what he'd just done.

He really, desperately needed to get over this crush on Zack. If the older boy ever discovered it and it drove him away, Cloud would never forgive himself. Sighing, he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, reaching for a towel. Maybe now that things had changed so much, his subconscious would be able to let go of an obsession with someone who didn't even really exist any more. Zack wasn't the same person he had been, and neither was Cloud. They'd been through far too much for that.

Once he was dressed in his pants and shirt, still rubbing his hair dry with a towel, he stepped out of the bathroom in a wave of escaped steam. "It's all yours if you want it," he said, dropping the towel and running his hand through his hair to comb it into its proper spikes.

There was no answer, not even so much as the sound of someone breathing, and Cloud's panicked blue eyes snapped up to survey the room. He was completely alone; Zack was gone.

For one horrible moment he wondered if this was some kind of karmic punishment for what he'd just done. Had he failed some kind of test by continuing to lust after his best friend? Had it all been just a dream after all, and he'd changed it by turning it erotic?

It was unreasonable and he knew it, but he couldn't convince his heart. Terrified he really had lost Zack somehow, he bolted for the door. "Zack? Zack!"

Coming up the stairs with his hands full of dishes, Zack didn't have anywhere to dodge to when the door opened suddenly and Cloud barrelled out and straight into him. "Watch it!" he yelped, dropping the plates and grabbing for Cloud's shoulder with one hand and the railing with the other.

The thin wood of the railing snapped under the pressure of his grip, but it served to slow their momentum and alter their trajectory enough that they didn't go tumbling head over heels down to the landing. Instead they wound up collapsed in a tangled heap on the stairs, Cloud sprawled half over Zack's lap and Zack's rear smarting from the impact with the edge of the step.

"Ow," he said intelligently, wincing. "Cloud, what the hell? Where's the fire?" His heart twisted when the younger man looked up at him and he saw the sheer panic slowly fading from those familiar blue eyes.

"You were gone," Cloud whispered, the tight muscles in his chest slowly unclenching. "I came out and you were gone. I thought..." He flushed, feeling monumentally stupid. "Never mind. Sorry." Carefully he started disentangling himself from his friend, trying not to think about where exactly he'd ended up draped over.

"Hey." Stopping him from pulling away too far by the grip he still had on the younger man's shoulder, Zack gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm the one who's sorry. I guess you didn't hear me when I said I was going to get us some breakfast. I'd have panicked, too." He looked ruefully at the shattered ceramic mixed with greasy eggs and bacon that littered the staircase. "Looks like we'll have to get breakfast somewhere else."

Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly, Cloud gave him a crooked smile. "We've really got to get over this," he said, and this time when he tried to move away Zack let him.

They untangled themselves and stood carefully, brushing at the bits of food that had landed on them. Zack grimaced at the piece of railing in his hand. "Damn. I suppose we'll have to pay for that - if there's no more Shinra that means there isn't any more fund to compensate people for damages incurred by SOLDIERs."

"There was a fund for compensating damages incurred by SOLDIERs?" Cloud asked, pausing and giving Zack a funny look.

"Well, yeah," Zack shrugged, sheepish. "Hades, you must know how easy it is to get excited and wreck something by accident. Happened all the time. Shinra was one hell of a tight-fisted bastard, but somebody in PR must have convinced him it was easier just to pay for all the damages so people wouldn't resent having SOLDIERs around."

That made a certain amount of sense, Cloud supposed. He'd been chewed out by Tifa more than once when he'd accidentally broken things around the bar. It was just a good thing that there were still enough monsters around that were worth a decent amount of gil. "I can pay for it," he said, smiling again. "I haven't really had much to spend my gil on, I've got plenty. Come on. Let's get out of here and go home."

The fall had startled Cloud, but it had also calmed him. Zack was still there. Stupid crush or not, the older man wasn't going anywhere. And the way Zack smiled at him when Cloud mentioned 'going home' made him think that maybe he didn't have to worry so much about it, after all. He'd get over the crush eventually. In the meantime, he had a friendship to enjoy.


	4. Chapter 4

The approach to Midgar that led to the cliff was on the Junon side of the city. The fastest way to get there would have been to go through Edge and the remains of Midgar, since Kalm was on the opposite side, but Cloud took them far out of their way to avoid even a glimpse of the city. Maybe it was irrational, but Cloud felt a strong urge to have Zack's first look be from the edge of the bluff. To pick up where they'd left off, in an odd way, continuing the journey that had been interrupted so long ago.

Zack certainly realized that Cloud was taking them the long way around, but he didn't object. For one thing he was enjoying the ride far too much to protest drawing it out, with the wind in his face and Cloud's strong body warm in front of his. The novelty of being the passenger was entertaining, and this couldn't have been more different from the long hours he'd spent on a stolen Shinra bike with Cloud slumped catatonic behind him as they fled Nibelheim.

When Cloud took them off the road and up the back side of the bluff, some of Zack's good mood slid away despite his best efforts to hang onto it. The slope wasn't as steep here as the side that faced Midgar, but most vehicles wouldn't have been able to make it. Zack had run up here, dragging Cloud along behind him and bleeding out from the sniper shot that had hit him in the back of the truck, hoping the rough ground would foil their pursuit.

Instead he'd trapped them and set them up for an ambush. Memories flooded him as they neared the spot where he'd finally fallen nearly a year after breaking them out of the lab. He'd relived these events so many times they were almost the only memories he had with no holes or fuzzy edges at all. The scars on his back and chest burned with the remembered pain of the bullets tearing into him as he'd used his own body to shield Cloud.

So close to their goal, and yet they might as well have been a million miles away. Now, three years later, they were finally going to take those last steps and start their new life together. Zack couldn't help but smile at the thought, despite the painful memories.

Feeling his friend tense up against his back, Cloud almost wished he'd taken a different route after all. Yet he still felt this had been the right thing to do, a step they both needed to take before they could let go of the past and move on.

As they crested the ridge and the remains of once-proud Midgar came into view, Zack gasped loudly enough to be audible over the engine. Cloud found a level place to stop, a few dozen feet from where the sword stood, and shut the bike off. For long moments the only sounds were the wind and distant cry of birds, the ticking of the cooling engine, and Zack's ragged breathing.

"Holy Alexander," the older man finally murmured, shocked. "I know you told me it had been destroyed, but... Odin's blood!" Staring at the twisted ruin that scarred the landscape, Zack swallowed hard. How many people must have died when Midgar fell? It was recognizable as the city he'd once known, but only when he looked hard.

Even from here, though, he could see the signs of reconstruction. Roads were being rebuilt, and shanty houses had sprung up everywhere there was space. It would have been easier for the survivors to go elsewhere, scatter across the globe rather than trying to rebuild, but human nature refused to accept that kind of total defeat. They _would_ rebuild, though it was sheerest folly to try to do so in a haunted place where nothing had grown for decades. How they'd kept from starving to death the first winter, he had no idea.

"It's different, seeing it for yourself, isn't it?" Cloud replied, looking out over the city rather than at Zack. This was the sort of shock you needed a moment to yourself to recover from, Cloud knew from experience. Yet there was a soft note of pride in his voice as his sharp eyes picked out landmarks here and there among the shantytown named Edge by Midgar's survivors. There was the rebuilt bar where Tifa lived and did her best to raise the children she had taken in. Not far from it was the hospital, one of the first communal buildings that had gone up and staffed entirely by volunteers to care for the wounded. Over there was the newest section, where houses were still being built to shelter those who chose to remain and the people drawn to the city by the wish to be part of something so defiant.

Cloud had helped build all of it in one way or another, and he knew the people who lived there. How could he not be proud, when so many people had chosen to thumb their nose at the hand fate had dealt them and go on living anyway? Oh, it was a squalid existence for many, and the darker side of humanity could be easily seen on the twisted streets, but it was _theirs_ and no disaster or monster could take it from them. Not even Sephiroth.

"Yeah, you can say that again," Zack agreed, shaking his head. Tearing his eyes from the ruined skyline, he scanned the cliff and paused in surprise when he spotted the sword. "Well, I can see why you said I'd need a new one," he commented, swinging his leg over the seat of the bike and making his way over to it.

The blade was marbled with lines of rust, the surface scarred and pitted after two years of exposure. It had been thrust deep enough into the cliff to keep it upright, the wind whistling eerily through the two empty materia slots. Crouching before it, Zack ran his hand over the surface and felt nicks and scratches both familiar and unknown. Here was the place where he'd taken a chip out of it on a behemoth's horn and never quite managed to grind it out again. There were the scars where bullets had struck it when he'd used it to shield himself and Cloud from Shinra's attacks. Across one side was a long score from a bladed weapon of some kind, and there were rough patches like the surface had been hit with something acidic and the polish eaten off.

The unfamiliar marks of wear on a sword Zack had known as well as the back of his hand drove home just how much he'd missed in the last years. Cloud had put those marks there, battling with Zack's sword because Zack hadn't been there at his side. Swallowing, Zack stood and set his hand on the hilt, looking out towards the city so that Cloud hopefully wouldn't see the grief and regret on his face. He should have been there for those battles, but instead he'd been trapped in a nightmare.

Too late to go back and undo what had happened, but he could at least make sure it didn't happen again. Getting his expression back under control, Zack gave his friend a smile. "Maybe we should leave it here. It's a part of the past, and we're moving to the future."

"No," Cloud replied, shaking his head with his eyes on the sword. "No, I put it here to mark your grave. It seems morbid to just leave it." He wasn't really superstitious, but there was no point in borrowing trouble. Not after the way their lives had already been marked by one disaster after another.

His gaze moved out over the city, and fixed on a spot away from the main part of Edge. You couldn't actually see the church from here, but he knew where it was well enough that he didn't have to guess. "I know a better place to leave it," he decided. Giving the buster sword a place of honour among the remaining flowers felt right, like a gift to Aerith to commemorate what she and Zack had been to each other. Somehow, he thought she would appreciate the gesture.

Not sure what Cloud had in mind but figuring the younger man probably knew what he was about, Zack just nodded. Tightening his hand on the hilt he pulled it easily out of the ground and hefted it, feeling the familiar weight. Slinging it across his shoulder, since he didn't have a way to hold it on his back, he turned to Cloud.

Whatever witty quip he'd been about to make died on his lips as he saw the younger man go white as a ghost and sag against the bike, blue eyes wide and almost frightened. "Cloud?" he said, concerned as he took a step forward. "Hey, you okay kid?"

Breathing a little too fast, Cloud tore his eyes from Zack and looked at the city instead. The sun was behind his friend and low enough to cast him in silhouette from that angle. Standing there on the cliff with the sword in his hand, the fact that he wasn't wearing his SOLDIER uniform hidden by the dazzle of light behind him, Zack had looked exactly the way he had just before the Shinra troops had gunned him down.

Cloud had still been catatonic when it happened, and it had taken a long time before he remembered the event at all, but apparently more memories had remained than he'd realized. They flooded him so strongly in that moment that it was all he could do not to shout a warning and fling himself at Zack to push the older man out of the way.

 _That was years ago,_ he reminded himself sternly. _Nobody is out to get you now. Shinra is gone. You're both safe._

Still, it was more than a little unnerving. "I'm fine," he forced out through lips that felt numb. "Just... could you come away from the cliff? You looked..."

It felt foolish when he actually went to say it, and he flushed and ducked his head. "Never mind," he mumbled, waving Zack's concern off. "Come on, we've still got a lot to do today."

Looking from Cloud, to the cliff, to the sword and back, Zack thought he understood. Things still caught him off guard sometimes, too, and he suspected they would continue to do so for a long time yet. "Yeah, sure," he agreed, moving away from the cliff to the bike. He clapped a hand on Cloud's shoulder before he swung his leg over the seat, squeezing briefly in a wordless offer of reassurance. This time they'd both be leaving the cliff under their own power, and most importantly they'd be doing it together.

Rather than going back around down the gentler slope to the road, Cloud decided to take the bike straight down the side of the bluff. He couldn't have chosen a better way to distract them both. Zack only had one hand to hang on with, needing the other to hold the buster sword, but he was in no danger of falling off despite the wild jumps the bike took over the rocks. Cloud needed almost all his concentration to keep them from crashing, but he spared just enough attention to enjoy the sound of Zack's delighted laughter.

As they hit the outskirts of Edge Cloud was forced to slow, but by then they'd both managed to restore their earlier good moods. Hesitating at the fork in the road that led to either 7th Heaven or the remains of sector 5, Cloud finally turned towards the church. They had the sword to deal with, after all, and he still wasn't quite ready to face Tifa.

Not that he was sure he would _ever_ be ready to face Tifa, and he was going to have to do it sooner or later. But he could put it off just a little longer, keep Zack to himself like a present he didn't want to have to share.

Then again, if Tifa acknowledged this was real, maybe that would drive the last doubts out of Cloud's mind. But if they really were symbolically finishing the journey they'd started so long ago then the church was the place they needed to go.

Recognizing where they were headed - it was hard for this part of sector 5 to get much more ruined, regardless of the state of the city as a whole - Zack tensed again. How many lazy afternoons and days of leave had he spent down here, just enjoying Aerith's soothing presence and the beauty of her impossible garden?

As the church came into sight, Zack's heart clenched hard. He almost wished it _had_ been destroyed, because it reminded him of too many good things he would never have again. At the same time he was pathetically grateful that it had survived the chaos, because it was all he had left of her.

Glancing at Cloud in front of him on the bike, he shook his head at his own folly. Of course it wasn't all he had left of her. Cloud remembered her too, and had loved her just as much as Zack had. She had even sent the younger man back, refusing to keep him for herself so that he could be there for Zack.

They coasted to a halt just outside the church, and Zack was surprised by the bunches of flowers laid on the steps and around the front. "What's all this?" he asked, easing off the bike and walking over to investigate. Some were fresh, but most were in varying stages of drying out.

"Gifts," Cloud explained, standing just behind him and fingering another bouquet. "People have turned it into something of a shrine, I guess. They're meant as a thank you for the healing water that cured the geostigma."

Smiling, Zack nodded his understanding and replaced the bunch he'd picked up, patting the delicate petals. "They picked an appropriate way to say thank you," he commented, turning towards the doors. "She always did love flowers more than anything. Seeds were the best present I could ever bring her." His smile turned warm as he remembered just how welcome the little packets had been, and how she'd showed her thanks. Gods, he missed her. When Cloud had told him that she'd still been waiting for him all those years after he'd vanished, it had touched him really deeply.

Walking into the church was like stepping back into the past, but oddly disorienting at the same time. The boards still creaked in the same places as he stepped over them, and the scent of flowers was strong in the air. If he closed his eyes, he could have easily believed he was just waiting for her to turn from the garden and notice him, and then she would run to him and throw herself happily into his arms for a welcoming embrace.

With his eyes open, though, the differences were obvious. A still pool of sparkling water covered most of the flowers, and the sunlight pouring in through the ruined areas of the roof looked distinctly out of place. He couldn't remember how many times he'd wondered what the garden would look like under sunlight. Now that he was finally getting to see it, it just felt wrong.

Moving to the edge of the water, Cloud paused and looked down into it. He'd spent more than one night standing here, wondering why she'd cast him out of heaven yet again. He'd thought it was because she wanted him to learn to move on, forgive himself and love again. That was probably still true, but... glancing over his shoulder at Zack, he smiled. Maybe there had been more to it than that.

"Look who I brought home," he murmured, because he was always sure that she heard him when he spoke to her in this place. Sure enough, the echo of her warm chuckle seemed to float across the water to him.

"What?" Zack blinked and froze, two steps behind Cloud. "What was that? I thought I heard..." Staring around himself at the empty church, he shook his head. "Never mind. I'm hearing things."

So Zack could hear her, too? Cloud wasn't sure if that surprised him or not. None of the others from AVALANCHE ever had, and he'd assumed that the only reason he could was because he'd been in and out of the Lifestream so often. But maybe the years of exposure to mako had more to do with it, and Zack had been subjected to that even more than Cloud had.

"Sometimes I hear her," he confessed. "Not just when I'm actually in the Lifestream. She kept trying to tell me that I wasn't alone, but it took me too long to understand."

 _Welcome home,_ the gentle murmur came from everywhere and nowhere all at the same time, and Cloud and Zack both squinted as the room seemed to go far too bright and soft at the edges. _I won't even scold you for being late._

"Aerith?" Zack wasn't sure just what he felt when he heard her voice. Everything was all jumbled up inside him, and his throat was tight. "Sorry babe. You know me. I get caught up and lose track of time." His voice was choked, and he coughed to try to clear it.

She laughed again, and both of the men had to smile at the sound. It was impossible not to smile when Aerith laughed, as both of them had learned. Cloud touched the ribbon he wore on his left arm, the same ribbon all of AVALANCHE wore in her memory.

 _Take care of each other,_ she ordered, and the words seem to go straight to Cloud's heart without touching his ears first. The sense of her presence faded before either of them could answer her, and they were left looking at each other over the flowers. The extra light had gone with her, leaving the church looking dim by comparison even though it had seemed bright and sunny when they'd walked in.

"Well. That was... weird," Zack finally declared, shifting and rubbing at the back of his head with one hand. Even when Cloud had told him about speaking to Aerith's spirit in the Lifestream, it had never occurred to him that _he_ would have a chance to talk to his dead girlfriend's ghost. There were so many things he could have said to her, _should_ have said to her... but maybe he hadn't needed to. Knowing Aerith, she'd already understood everything he couldn't find words to say.

"I'm never quite sure what to make of it when she does that," Cloud admitted, smiling sadly. "At least this time I wasn't in the middle of trying to dodge trees on a breakneck race through the forest on my bike. She's a little distracting."

Laughing at the image, Zack grinned back at him. "Is this where you wanted to leave the sword?" he asked, finding he agreed with the sentiment. It was a good place for it, the symbol of who he had been along with the garden that was her memorial.

When Cloud nodded, he moved forward and found a place near the pool where the earth had been piled higher after being displaced by the emergence of the water. Spiking the sword down with all his considerable strength, Zack drove it a good foot and a half into the dirt and the concrete and wood beneath. When he let go it stood proudly in place, a silent monument to the past.

"There," he said in satisfaction as Cloud came up beside him to study it. Reaching out, he caught the younger man around the shoulders and ruffled his hair, hoping to get the sadness out of the blond's smile. "Looks pretty good, I think. So where do I get a new one? I want a cool transforming one like yours!"

"You are such a child," Cloud retorted, but the lingering traces of sorrow vanished as he squirmed half out of Zack's grip and retaliated, mussing the dark black spikes as thoroughly as Zack had ever managed to do to him. Laughing, Zack shifted his hold and tried to turn Cloud so the younger man couldn't reach him.

It turned into an impromptu wrestling match, each struggling to be the only one who could get at the other, the flowers rustling around them as they tussled. In mere moments Zack was astonished to find himself flat on his back with Cloud perched on his chest, holding him with knees on his shoulders and both of Zack's wrists in Cloud's hand. Judging by the startled look in those wide blue eyes, the younger man was just as shocked as Zack to find himself the winner.

Slowly, the startled look turned to something like delight. "Stupid," Cloud informed him almost fondly. "You were holding back. I'm not breakable any more, remember?" It wasn't the first time they'd scuffled, but it was the first time he'd ever come out on top, and certainly the very idea that he might win in under a minute would never have occurred to him.

Once again reminded that things had changed, Zack gave him a dangerous grin in return. "Right," he agreed. "So you won't mind if I do this, then." He tensed and kicked up, tossing Cloud right over his head and flipping their positions. Cloud managed to roll away before Zack could get him pinned, and after that it was a _real_ battle.

They fought for dominance, scruffing in the dirt and doing serious damage to each other's clothes as they pushed and pulled. Aside from making certain that things didn't get to the point where actual injuries would occur, neither of them held back at all.

Zack felt just as delighted as Cloud had looked; he couldn't remember the last time he'd been able to _play_ like this, without having to worry about damaging the person he was with. He hadn't had many real friends among the SOLDIERs, not the type he could just ambush and wrestle with for the hell of it. And he'd certainly never had a chance to do it with Cloud, who was the one person who could probably most use a bit of childish playing in his life.

Both of them shouted threats and insults that came out breathless with laughter as they struggled, but neither could manage to get an advantage over the other for more than a few seconds. Finally one of Zack's more enthusiastic attempts to keep Cloud from pinning him sent them both tumbling into the pool, hitting the cool water with a shocking splash.

Sputtering and gasping for air, they surfaced a few feet apart and stood, waist deep in the crystal water and staring at each other. Zack started snickering first but Cloud wasn't long in joining him, and shortly they were both laughing hard enough to echo through the ruins of the church.

"Shiva and Ifrit, that was _fun_ ," Zack declared, his eyes gleaming more with mischief and amusement than mako.

"This does nothing to disprove my earlier statement about you being such a child," Cloud retorted, getting himself back under control and managing to mock glare at his friend. The effect was somewhat ruined by the equal amusement in his eyes, however. "But yes, it was fun," he relented after a moment.

Looking ruefully down at himself, Cloud realized that the water had turned the dirt into mud, and he had bits of grass and leaves and flower petals clinging to him as well. Zack was in no better shape. At least the cool water had helped quench the physical reaction he'd been starting to have to being so close to Zack. "We can't go see Tifa like this," he declared, sloshing towards the bank and scrambling up onto the flowers once more. "She'll make us both mop the floors for a week if we drag mud and water into her bar."

"You sound like you're speaking from experience," Zack teased him, running a hand through his hair to get the worst of the mess out of it before following.

"Damn right I am," Cloud replied, smiling again. The expression was getting easier, and starting to feel more natural. At this rate, he thought with amusement, it would start to feel odd when he frowned. Had there _ever_ been a time in his life when that was true? "I rode through a thunderstorm to get back here to see her on her last birthday, and the first thing she did was make me clean up the mess. Trust me, you don't ever want Tifa mad at you."

"No, I think I remember that part," Zack agreed with another laugh, hauling himself onto dry land. "Well, if we don't want to drip everywhere we either need to wait to go see her or find something to change into. I don't know about you but I'm starving, so I vote for changing."

Though it was tempting to put off the inevitable a little longer, Cloud knew he was just being silly at this point. "I've got extra clothes, I sleep here sometimes," he said, picking his way through the flowers to avoid damaging them any further. "You should fit my stuff."

And that was just as odd a thought as all the rest of it. They were almost the same size now, the differences caused by age and strength no longer as clearly defined. Cloud's shirts would be a bit tight over Zack's chest and his pants might be just a little too short, but it would hardly be noticeable.

He turned with a pair of jeans and another t-shirt in his hands. "Here," he offered almost shyly. "I don't have much. I've never really cared about clothes, mostly I just wash and do my best to repair what I'm wearing."

"No problem," Zack assured him, taking the clothes happily. "I'm no clothes-horse myself. This is fine, don't worry about it. What about you?"

Cloud took stock of himself. He didn't have another pair of pants, but the ones he was wearing weren't too bad. The leather duster he wore had taken most of the dirt on his bottom half, and the leather of the pants shed the water easily enough. His shirt was both soaked and dirty, and one of the straps of his pauldron had snapped, leaving the metal shoulder armour only loosely held in place.

"I'll just change my shirt," he decided, and turned his back so he wouldn't have to watch Zack get changed. Even with his eyes firmly fixed on the nearest wall, though, he still blushed as he stripped out of armour and shirt and pulled a new shirt over his head. The leather duster he set aside until he could get a chance to clean the mud now ground into it, and put the metal pauldron on top of it.

He felt half naked in just 'civilian' clothes and his sword belt. On the other hand he had a feeling many wrestling matches like that were probably in his future, and it would be a lot more comfortable without the armour and extra leather to get tangled in.

Smiling at the thought, he turned to find that Zack was just tugging his new shirt on as well. As Cloud had expected it was a little tight, but no worse than the one they'd taken from the lab. Their boots still squelched, of course, but there wasn't much they could do about that.

Disregarding the sword belt at Cloud's waist and the mako glow in their eyes, they could have been any two boys in their twenties just hanging out and having fun. Cloud felt... normal. It wasn't a familiar sensation.

"We're going to have to get me some clothes soon, I can't keep stealing other people's," Zack commented with a laugh, turning and seeing Cloud watching him. "And a weapon. With a proper holster, carrying it around is a pain. But it can wait."

"Yeah. Tomorrow," Cloud promised him. There were a lot of things that still needed to be figured out, now that it was finally sinking in that Zack was here to _stay_. But all of it could wait until the next day. A slow grin spread over his face. "Now I think it's time to find out if someone really can die of shock."


	5. Chapter 5

As they went past 7th Heaven towards the alley behind it, Cloud grimaced when he saw the 'open' sign and heard the sound of raucous drinking coming from inside. He'd been hoping they would get here before Tifa opened for the day, but they'd slept so long in Kalm that it was later than he'd thought it would be.

No help for it now. They could come back tomorrow, of course, but Tifa would _kill_ him if she found out he'd been in Midgar with Zack for an entire day before coming to see her.

Assuming that she didn't declare this to be some kind of twisted hallucination of his, but Aerith's response to Zack in the church had eased most of his fears on that count. If he was bad enough off to hallucinate Aerith acknowledging Zack, then he'd probably hallucinate Tifa accepting him as well. He knew there were still parts of his mind that were significantly broken, but he didn't think he was _that_ bad.

Coasting into the alley, he pulled to a stop and kicked the stand down, leaning the weight of the bike to that side so he could stand. Zack slid off behind him, but for a long moment Cloud just sat there, staring at the back door and chewing his lip as he considered his options.

"You just gonna sit there all night, kid?" Zack asked curiously when he turned and saw that Cloud wasn't following him. "Everything okay?" He was more than a little nervous himself, truth to tell. The last time he'd seen Tifa Lockheart, she'd been broken and bleeding on the floor of the Nibelheim reactor. Given what Cloud had told him AVALANCHE had been through against Sephiroth, he wouldn't blame her in the least if she had a serious hate on for SOLDIERs and anything associated with Shinra.

"No, I..." Cloud shook his head, struggling for words to explain as he reluctantly slid off the bike. Before he could get any further the back door slammed open and a small, dark-haired form came flying out.

"Cloud!" the little girl cried happily, throwing herself off the second to last step and straight at him. Automatically he moved forward and caught her to keep her from falling, scooping her up to hold her against his chest. "Cloud, you're back, you're back! Are you staying long this time? You promised, you said next time you wouldn't leave for a while!"

"I remember, Marlene," he agreed, shifting her so she was sitting on one of his arms with her side braced against his shoulder, his other arm keeping her from falling. She was really getting too big for this, but with the strength of a SOLDIER he had no trouble holding her up. "Things have changed a little. I might not be staying here, but I won't be going anywhere for a while. You'll see me."

Watching in bemusement as the little girl pouted at his friend, Zack tried to put two and two together and couldn't come up with four. "Either a lot more time has gone by than you told me, or you were up to a lot of things on leave that you never told me about, or...?" He trailed off and looked at Cloud expectantly. The girl was too old to be his friend's daughter, _surely_ , but that was sure what it looked like. Other than the fact that she called him 'Cloud' and not 'papa' or something, anyway.

It took Cloud a few moments to figure out what Zack was getting at, but then he sputtered and nearly dropped Marlene in his embarrassment. "What? No! Gods, Zack, she's not _mine_! She's one of the kids Tifa looks after, she's Barrett's adopted daughter!"

"You're blushing," Marlene observed, clearly fascinated by the very idea. The words made Cloud flush harder, of course, and Zack choked on a snicker when Cloud glared at him for laughing. Had Marlene really never seen him blush before? Considering how easy it was to get him to do it, that seemed amazing.

Then again, he hadn't had much reason to blush in the last few years. Or smile, for that matter. The heat in Cloud's cheeks faded as he considered what her mental image of him must be, and didn't really like what he saw. He'd done his best to protect and defend her and Denzel, and he loved them both, but even on the occasions when he'd played with them he'd been too wrapped up in his own emotional and physical pain to really relax and just be their friend.

Well, that was going to change. Zack was an expert at poking and teasing people out of bad moods or being withdrawn, and he was especially good at it where Cloud was concerned. At least, he had been, and Cloud didn't think _that_ much had changed.

Still stifling his laughter, Zack watched Cloud and the little girl with amusement dancing in his eyes. He remembered Cloud mentioning the kids now, but it had been a pretty funny thought while it lasted.

"Marlene, can you get Tifa for me?" Cloud asked, ignoring Zack's obvious hilarity. "Tell her I need to talk to her in private, please." He did _not_ want this particular reunion to happen in front of a crowded bar full of strangers. Tifa would never forgive him for it, for one thing. When Marlene only looked at him, he sighed and added coaxingly, "I promise I won't go away again without spending some time with you and Denzel. Okay? But I need to talk to Tifa first, and it might be a few days before I have time."

Clearly considering it, Marlene finally nodded. "Okay, I'll get her. But don't forget you promised!" She slid down out of his arms and ran for the back door. Leaning back against the nearest alley wall, Cloud crossed his arms over his chest.

"Out here?" Zack asked, seeing the younger man apparently settling in. They were going to have this conversation in an alley?

"Better here than inside," Cloud explained quietly. "The walls are thin, and she won't appreciate having everyone in the building know it if she's shocked." Zack nodded, that made a certain amount of sense. So he settled in as well, sitting perched on the seat of the bike and trying not to watch the door apprehensively. He knew how much Tifa meant to Cloud, and if she didn't react well to his presence for one reason or another it could mean real trouble. Fervently he prayed she wasn't the type to hold a grudge against people who hadn't actually done anything to _her_.

Inside Tifa was moving from one end of the bar to the other, filling drinks and taking gil, cleaning the condensation and spilled alcohol from the surface as she went. It wasn't packed, still too early in the evening for the sort of wall-to-wall crowd she sometimes got, but it was busy enough to keep her moving. Thanks to her connections outside the city, particularly Cid and his airship, she was able to get alcohol from places that hadn't been as badly destroyed as Midgar and offer it at something resembling a reasonable price. That made 7th Heaven the most popular watering hole in Edge, and while she was grateful for the continued income it did leave her exhausted sometimes.

Spotting Marlene peeking through the door that led from the taproom to the rest of the building, Tifa made a face and flapped a towel at the girl. "Marlene! You're not supposed to be in here, you know that. Go back to your room, sweetie."

Shaking her head, Marlene gestured her closer. Tifa frowned at being ignored but walked towards her anyway, because Marlene was usually a good girl and didn't disobey without reason. "What is it? Is something wrong? Is Denzel okay?"

She felt a flash of fear, and tried to stifle it. Denzel had been healed of the geostigma by Aerith's miraculous water just like everyone else, but there was a tiny part of Tifa that was still afraid it was too good to be true and that it had only been a temporary cure. She lived in terror of seeing that ugly discolouration on the boy's skin again; not only because it meant watching him suffering once more, but because it meant Cloud would likely fall prey to it again as well.

To her intense relief, however, Marlene was already shaking her head. "No, he's okay. Cloud is back! I saw him out the window, he's in the back alley with a friend. He asked me to tell you that he needs to talk to you in private."

Tifa made a surprised noise. If Cloud had been with one of the other AVALANCHE members then Marlene would have identified who it was, not just said 'a friend'. If it was one of the Turks Marlene would have said that, too. _Cloud has other friends?_ she found herself thinking, and shook her head.

"All right," she agreed out loud, wiping her hands on the towel and setting it aside. "You go back to bed, Marlene, okay? I promise I won't let him leave again without coming to see you."

The little girl nodded and beamed. "He said he'd spend some time with us before he left again. I'm going to go tell Denzel!" She scampered off, and Tifa breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She'd been afraid that Cloud showing up with a stranger meant trouble, but he wouldn't have promised Marlene that he would stick around unless he was sure he could do it.

"Mikey, watch the bar for me will you?" she called to one of her more level-headed - and less drunk - regular patrons. "You can have one on the house when I get back." He nodded and moved to come around to the back of the bar, and she vaulted neatly over the top to the door.

As she moved through the building to the alley, she tried to think of a reason Cloud might have brought a stranger home. There weren't really any that occurred to her. He didn't like exposing her and especially the kids to danger, but if it had been an emergency then he wouldn't have promised Marlene that he would be around for a while.

Both Cloud and Zack tensed as they heard footsteps inside the building, several moments before Tifa actually opened the door. Zack did his best to look casual sitting there on the bike, and Cloud hugged his arms a little closer to him. This was it, the moment of truth.

Stepping outside, Tifa's eyes went automatically to Cloud. His blond spikes drew the eye more in the dim twilight than the stranger's dark hair, and anyway she always tended to look at him first in a crowd. She put a hand to her mouth and her eyes went wide as she saw what he was wearing. When was the last time she'd ever seen him in something so casual? Granted, he'd set aside his uniform after Sephiroth's defeat in the North Crater, but he wore his usual outfit like it was just another uniform.

"Cloud, why are you..." she started, but then the other man stood from the bike and drew attention to himself, and she got a good look at him. The words died in her mouth as she froze, her mind spinning in little circles. It wasn't. It couldn't be. He was _dead_.

"That's not funny," she declared abruptly, her voice half an octave higher than usual as she pointed a trembling finger at Zack. "Cloud, that's not funny at all. When I said you needed to get a sense of humour, that is _not_ what I _meant_!"

Well, Zack decided, all things considered that was a better reaction than it might have been. He exchanged a glance with Cloud, who looked at a loss for words, and shrugged. "Tifa," he said, taking another step forward. He didn't need Cloud to confirm that this was who they were looking for. It might have been more than seven years, but the friendly, pretty girl he'd known briefly in Nibelheim was still evident in the strong, beautiful woman who stood before them now. "It's good to see you again. Especially in one piece."

The moment the words were out of his mouth he regretted them, wincing. Way to rub her nose in the reminder of exactly what had happened the last time they'd seen each other.

"I don't know who you are or how Cloud talked you into this," Tifa sputtered, her heart clenching in her chest. "But... but... it's not funny!" she repeated, shaking her head to try to clear it. Her memories of the charming SOLDIER 1st Class who had accompanied Sephiroth to Nibelheim were fuzzy with age, but the man in front of her certainly fit them. He was paler, older, and far more care-worn, but still the same in an indefinable way.

Except that it couldn't possibly _be_ him, so he wasn't 'still the same', just a very good approximation. Realizing belatedly that she was still pointing at him like an idiot, Tifa dropped her hand to clench it into a fist at her side.

"It's not a joke, Tifa," Cloud finally spoke up, moving hesitantly away from the wall. He looked up at her uncertainly, hoping against hope that she would be able to accept this. "It's not, I swear. You should know I'd never joke about something like this. I... I found him. In a secret lab of Hojo's. I wasn't on a delivery run, I was looking for the records Hojo kept on me."

Staring at Cloud, Tifa saw the truth in his glowing blue eyes. At the very least, _he_ believed this was really Zack, the best friend he'd lost so long ago. Tifa still wasn't sure she was convinced, but it was clear that she wouldn't be able to argue against Cloud's conviction.

"I'm sorry," Zack apologized abruptly, making both Cloud and Tifa stare at him. Moving to the base of the steps, he looked up at where she stood on the landing and put every bit of sincerity that he could into his expression. "Tifa, I can't even begin to tell you how sorry I am for what happened. If I'd been paying more attention to how oddly Seph was acting instead of teasing Cloud about not wanting you to know he was there, I might have seen it coming in time to stop him."

That was a guilt he'd been carrying for far too many years, the one thing he'd never admitted even in all his babbling to the comatose Cloud. Deep down inside he couldn't help but feel that the disaster in Nibelheim was at least partly his fault. He'd known Sephiroth better than anyone, and he should have seen the warning signs for what they were. He should have at the very least been standing guard so he could mitigate the initial damage, instead of being asleep in bed while Sephiroth set the town ablaze.

Tifa tried to deny the evidence, but there was no way to get around it. Those words, heartfelt and heavy with guilt, could only have come from one person.

"Odin defend us, it really is you," she whispered into the hand still covering her mouth. "Oh gods. How? Why? Cloud was sure you were dead!"

"It's a long story," Cloud told her, sighing. "And this isn't really the place for it. I just didn't think you'd appreciate getting this kind of shock in a public setting."

Snorting with laughter despite herself, Tifa had to acknowledge the truth of that. "All right. Come inside and wait in the back while I clear out the main room." The patrons wouldn't be happy to have her close up abruptly like that, but Tifa thought she was entitled under the circumstances. She wanted to hear this story _now_ , not at three in the morning when she was exhausted from working. And there was no way she would be able to concentrate on work when she knew these two were waiting.

As predicted everyone protested when she walked in and announced the bar was closed, but a promise of a free round to everyone soothed most of the ruffled feathers. An explanation of a private emergency eased the rest of the irritation; most people in Edge were aware of the part she had played in defeating Bahamut and bringing the healing rain, at the very least, and they all knew that a 'personal emergency' undoubtedly had something to do with Cloud.

Waiting in the back, Cloud and Zack followed the progress of the exodus by the muffled sounds that came through the door, both showing their tension in their own ways. Zack had started pacing, stepping carefully so that the noise he made was minimal despite his weight and heavy boots. Cloud was leaning against the wall again, chewing on his lower lip and lost in thought. When he tasted the copper of blood and felt a brief sting in his lip he realized what he was doing, and flushed. Not only was it a reminder of what he'd been up to in the shower that morning, but that particular nervous habit was something he hadn't indulged in for... years. Not since before Nibelheim. The more memories Zack's presence brought back, the more he seemed to be returning to his old habits and mannerisms.

Finally Tifa opened the door and gestured them into the deserted bar. She'd locked the door and pulled the metal shutters down on all the windows, leaving them in the dim artificial lights. Electrical power was still an uncertain resource, especially here in Edge, but 7th Heaven had a gas-powered generator of its own that ran the lights and appliances. It was enough to keep them going, and that was all that mattered.

"I suppose you're hungry," Tifa said automatically, knowing Cloud's habit of eating only when it occurred to him. He always seemed to be hungry when he showed up at her place. She didn't really mind feeding him; it gave her a chance to fuss over him a little without him pulling away from her again. He worried her, sometimes, though he _had_ been getting better since the end of the geostigma.

To her surprise though, it was Zack who answered her. "If you have anything handy, that would be great," the former SOLDIER said, running one hand through the spikes of his hair in a gesture she recognized from when Cloud was feeling sheepish. Or maybe Cloud was the one who had picked it up from Zack, she realized belatedly. The two of them certainly had remarkably similar expressions on their face as they hovered near the doorway uncertainly, watching her like they were afraid she was going to jump at them and bite them.

The thought made her stifle a slightly hysterical giggle. How much of what she knew of Cloud from recent years was actually Cloud, and how much had been an echo of Zack? "I'll see what I can find," she said, waving them towards the tables. "Sit down already! You make me tired just looking at how tense the two of you are."

Without thinking about it Cloud chose a table in the corner that would let him sit with his back to the wall and see the front door clearly. He paused halfway down when he realized it wasn't the table he normally chose; that one let him watch _both_ doors but had his back to empty space. It always made him itchy, but he'd decided long ago it was more important to be able to see both entrances. So why the sudden, unthinking change?

He realized why he'd altered his usual choice when Zack dropped into the seat next to him, also with his back to a wall but facing the other exit. Without even stopping to consider it Cloud had trusted Zack to watch the door he couldn't see, as Zack had apparently trusted Cloud to do the same. And this let them both put their backs to a wall.

"What is it?" Zack asked, seeing Cloud hovering halfway into his seat with a surprised look on his face. "Somebody spill something on that chair? We can switch it out."

"No, I just..." Cloud shook his head and sat down the rest of the way with a small smile that Zack couldn't quite interpret. "I was surprised by my choice of table."

"Why?" Zack blinked, looking around at all the other possibilities and confirming that this was the obvious choice. Cloud had taken the seat that Zack would have chosen if he'd gotten there first, but really it was just as important to watch the 'safer' back door as it was to watch the front. And, as he kept reminding himself, Cloud was every bit as capable now as Zack himself. He didn't have to give the younger man the less taxing or less dangerous jobs any more.

"Because I'm not used to having someone I trust to watch my blind side," Cloud informed him wryly, leaning back in his chair. It wasn't that he didn't trust Tifa and the others to do their part in a fight. It was just that other than Vincent none of them had the training that would make them stop to think about where the doors and walls were before they sat down somewhere.

"Ah." Zack nodded, understanding. Cloud was used to working alone, whereas Zack had been trained to work either on his own or as part of a group. But the fact that Cloud had adjusted to having a partner so quickly pleased Zack. It meant that once _he_ accepted the idea that he could count on Cloud as an equal, they'd be able to work together smoothly instead of fighting against each other all the time.

The smell of food distracted both of them, and they turned as one to see Tifa emerging from the rear door with a platter heaped with sandwiches. "If you eat half as much as he does when he comes home hungry, this isn't going to be enough," Tifa said to Zack, using forced levity to hide the nervousness and disbelief she still felt. "But it's a start."

"A good start," he agreed, his eyes alight with more than just mako as he fell on the sandwiches like a starving man. He snatched one right out from under Cloud's hand, grinning when the blond man threw him a disgruntled look, and bit into it happily.

"I suppose you want to hear the whole story," Cloud said reluctantly, taking another sandwich and picking at the edges of it as he tried to think of where to start.

"That would be nice," Tifa agreed, deceptively mild. The dangerous glint in her eyes warned that she would settle for nothing less than the complete truth, but she was willing to let them tell it at their own pace. That it would be a hell of a story she had no doubt.

So they told her, taking turns to fill in details and allow the other to eat. Zack explained how he'd been recaptured on the cliff outside Midgar, and how he'd given up on fighting after being told that Cloud had died. Cloud related his quest for Hojo's hidden lab, and the reasoning that had started him looking for his records in the first place. The story of the rescue was a little more jumbled, with both of them interrupting the other constantly to add details or make corrections, but she got the gist of it.

When at last they seemed to have run out of things to say, they both chewed at their food and waited for her to respond. Tifa considered it all, trying to make her brain stop hurting long enough to think. To say that it was a shock would be a gross understatement. To say that it was unbelievable was slightly more accurate, but still didn't encompass the sheer improbability of the whole mess.

More, she knew they weren't telling her everything. She wasn't sure if they just weren't ready to talk about it or if they were trying to shield her somehow, but there was definitely something going unsaid. Cloud kept looking at Zack and then hastily away again, and at one point when mentioning stopping by the church Zack had faltered briefly before continuing as if nothing had happened. They'd both also danced around details of what exactly had been done to Zack in the lab, but frankly she was just as happy not to hear that part.

Well, she'd let them keep their secrets, at least for the moment. Tifa had more than enough on her plate to deal with, she didn't need to go hunting for extra problems. "I swear you have the most uncanny ability to put yourself in the strangest situations," she said to Cloud at last, shaking her head in disbelief. "Your entire life from the moment you left Nibelheim has been one long series of improbable or impossible events and coincidences. I don't know why it should surprise me that you've stumbled into another one."

Relieved that Tifa seemed to be accepting things at least on the surface, Cloud ducked his head. "You're telling me," he muttered, and took a big bite of his sandwich so he wouldn't be expected to say anything else.

"It's a talent of his," Zack commented dryly, grinning at Tifa as he relaxed. "I could tell you stories you'd never believe, man. Like how we met - his chocobo threw up all over my shirt as I was making an inspection of the mounted troops. He swore up and down that he hadn't done anything to the poor bird, but I still think he was just trying to get attention. Or how he passed out - _he_ says from blood loss - the first time he ever gave a report to..."

"Zack!" Horrified at the track the brunet's words were taking, Cloud lunged across the table and clamped a hand over the older man's mouth. He moved so fast Tifa jumped, not having seen him coming, but Zack didn't even try to dodge. He just laughed behind Cloud's hand, his eyes sparkling.

"She does not need to hear about every embarrassing moment I ever had in the army," Cloud hissed, his cheeks flaming as he glared at his best friend. And more than that, stories that involved Sephiroth, however amusing, were probably _not_ good conversation fodder in this company.

Zack had already realized the massive mistake he'd been about to make, of course, and he nodded slightly to indicate his gratitude that Cloud had stopped him before he said the forbidden name. Cloud let go and leaned back to his side of the table when he was sure Zack wasn't about to complete the sentence, leaving Tifa watching both of them with a slightly astonished expression.

"Anyway," Zack continued cheerfully as if he'd never been interrupted, "it really is sort of a trend with him. Between that and the lucky silver spoon rumour has it was shoved up my ass at birth, really we shouldn't be surprised that we both survived and managed to find each other again. It was fate, or inevitable, or something."

"Clearly I hadn't done enough to atone for whatever horrible thing it is I did to saddle me with you for punishment," Cloud muttered, and Zack just grinned at him.

"Or maybe you had and that's why we got separated for so long. Clearly you need to misbehave more, so it doesn't happen again," Zack chided him. "Don't worry, I think it's a self-correcting situation. With me around, you'll never get enough good karma built up to get clear of whatever cosmic mistake I'm the punishment for."

Tifa winced as she saw Cloud bite his lip and look away, his gaze going down and to the side to hide his expression from them. He did that sometimes, usually when he was with a group of people who were laughing and joking around. Occasionally he recovered quickly but more often it would take him several minutes before he could participate in the conversation again, especially if he'd been the target of the teasing. She still remembered the horrendous way he'd been treated as a child in Nibelheim, with a sense of shame for the way she had often ignored him as well, and could only assume that the teasing reminded him of a time when he'd been very much the outsider instead of part of the group.

Usually when she saw him do it she hastily changed the subject to something innocuous or at least less centred on him, and it generally worked to draw him back into the conversation immediately. This time, however, Zack beat her to it - and he did the one thing she'd always carefully avoided doing. He drew attention directly to Cloud.

"You!" the brunet exclaimed, pointing at Cloud. Cringing, Tifa debated whether it would be too drastic to kick him to shut him up. To her shock, Zack continued with a grin, "What are you laughing at, huh?"

Giving up on suppressing the smile that had wanted to work its way onto his face, Cloud choked on a snicker and looked up at his friend with an expression that was a mixture of rue and amusement. "You," he retorted, his voice trembling around a laugh he refused to give voice to. "You haven't changed a bit. She's going to think you never take anything seriously. If I didn't know better, _I'd_ think so!"

Grinning in genuine delight at the teasing, Zack shook his head. " _I_ haven't changed? Says the guy who still can't just laugh like a normal person would. Why do you _do_ that, anyway?"

"Because laughing would encourage you," Cloud told him, rolling his eyes. "And encouragement is the last thing you need." Had he developed the habit of stifling his amusement before or after he'd become friends with Zack? He couldn't remember, honestly. It might have been a side effect of his isolation as a child in Nibelheim too... but if so, it had certainly become an essential tool of survival where Zack was concerned.

"Hey!" Zack protested, and grabbed the nearest item to hand - a wadded up napkin rather than something heavy or breakable, thankfully - to throw at Cloud's head. That startled a very brief but genuine laugh from the younger man, and Zack mock-glared at him. "You make it sound like I'm incorrigible. Or maybe 'encourage-able', considering the context?"

Cloud snickered again, covering it by coughing into his hand, but his eyes gave him away. Knowing Zack would continue until he'd gotten a full laugh out of him, Cloud looked around and latched onto the closest excuse to get away for a moment so he could get himself under control. "I'll get more sandwiches," he said, standing and picking up the tray before almost fleeing into the back room.

Still in shock, Tifa stared after him with wide eyes. That was... that had _not_ been the Cloud she knew, or had ever known. She had, on rare occasions, seen him startled into a laugh or excited enough to forget himself briefly - winning chocobo races had often brought out his childish side for just a moment as he bounced gleefully, before he recovered and sobered again. She'd encouraged him to race more than they'd really needed to, just to see that look on his face.

But this? Smiling and teasing, his expression more open than she could ever remember seeing it... no, this was not 'her' Cloud. Even as a child he'd been shy and withdrawn. The closest she'd ever come to seeing what she thought of as 'the real Cloud' had been the night he'd made the promise to her at the well, just before he'd left for Midgar and SOLDIER, but that had been nothing like what she'd just witnessed either. Yet Zack had made it look easy to coax him out of his shell.

"Man, I swear," Zack said, shaking his head and chuckling as Tifa transferred her gaze to him. "He's so damn difficult sometimes, and he does it on purpose! Do you have any idea how long it took me to figure out that he's _laughing_ when he does that little 'look away and bite his lip' gesture?"

"He's laughing when he does that?" Tifa repeated weakly. It seemed like a stupid thing to say, given that she'd just seen for herself that it _was_ laughter that Cloud used that gesture to cover, but it was the only thing she could think of. How many times had she pushed the conversation in another direction to avoid hurting or embarrassing him, never realizing that she'd been depriving him of something he'd found _amusing_?

Looking down into her shocked brown eyes, Zack's expression softened and his voice gentled. "Yeah, well, like I said, it's not very obvious. He's good at hiding what he's feeling, or misdirecting you." He'd thought that as Cloud's oldest friend she would surely have known the gesture for what it was; he didn't _think_ Cloud had developed it just for him, the younger man had done it through the entire time Zack had known him.

It obviously upset Tifa that she hadn't known it for what it was, though. A lesser person might have chided her for not knowing something that important about a man she was supposedly close to, but Zack wasn't the sort to rub other people's noses in their mistakes.

"Of course, the fact that he's so stubborn about hiding it when I'm amusing him just makes it all the more fun to try," Zack declared, raising his voice enough for Cloud to hear him if the younger man was nearby. "It's an art form, really. And hearing him really laugh is worth the effort."

"I... I'm sure," Tifa stammered, flushing. Not that she would know. Had she _ever_ heard Cloud laugh? Really, truly laugh, without restraint or sorrow? Not that she could remember.

"Teasing him is the easy way to do it, but it can backfire on you," Zack continued, his eyes twinkling as he settled into 'lecture' mode. "If he takes it personally he gets all grumpy and sulky, and then it takes forever to placate him or make him forget he's supposed to be upset at you." He heard Cloud's footsteps just before the door opened, and looked over to grin at his friend.

Cloud was scowling back at him, his expression back under control, but the glare didn't reach his eyes. It _was_ a game, he remembered, a constant competition between them to see whether Zack could make him forget himself or if Cloud could hold onto his self control. He'd missed it.

"Will you stop trying to corrupt her?" he demanded, setting the plate of sandwiches down and settling back into his chair. "Bad enough I've got _you_ to deal with again, I don't need you finding reinforcements."

"Hey, show some appreciation for the effort I'm going to for your sake," Zack replied, his grin widening. "Ungrateful brat."

"Unmitigated jerk," Cloud retorted.

They paused, looking at each other speculatively as the familiar insults caused a memory to surface for both of them at the same time. Tifa looked back and forth between them in confusion and was just about to ask what was wrong when they started talking again.

"Tenderfoot," Zack accused him, and Cloud snorted.

"Overconfident!" the blond shot back. "Arrogant, too."

"Hey, that's two at once, no fair!" Zack protested, snickering. "Wet-behind-the-ears bootlicker!"

In total astonishment Tifa watched as the two young men shot insults back and forth at each other, getting progressively more intense and creative. Zack's voice was strangled with laughter, and Cloud's whole face was alight with the amusement that slowly morphed into a smile no matter how hard he struggled to hide it. Finally they began to wind down, running out of inventive terms to use and falling back on the old standbys.

"Bastard," Cloud said breathlessly, biting his lip hard to keep the smile from getting any more out of control. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had this much fun; trading insults with Zack was always entertaining. They'd once had Sephiroth sitting there looking at them in shock much the same way Tifa was doing now, which had always added hilarity to it. The memory didn't even hurt as much as he'd expected it to.

"My parents were quite happily married, thank you," Zack replied, chuckling. "At least, so they've always asserted. Asshole."

Fishing for something else, Cloud came up with nothing and fell back on the one thing that Zack could never top. "SOLDIER!"

"Owww," Zack mock-groaned and clenched at his heart dramatically, giving Tifa a pathetically wounded look. "Did you hear that? Worst insult any trooper can give a SOLDIER, bar none. There's nothing I can say to go one up on that. Not fair!" He made sad eyes at Cloud. "You shouldn't be allowed to use that one."

The blond was unmoved; this was a familiar part of the argument as well. "Don't start a fight you know you can't win," he said unsympathetically. "I never understood why you thought you'd ever get me to agree to give up my trump card in the one thing I could always beat you in!"

"I get no love," Zack complained melodramatically. "No appreciation at all. Are you going to be as mean to me as he is?" he asked Tifa.

"If you deserve it," she answered without thinking, still too surprised at the childish name-calling war to really process anything. "You two are worse than a pair of five-year-olds!"

"Funnily enough, you're not the first person to say that," Zack informed her, eyes glowing with mako and mischief.

"Actually, I think the phrase he used was 'worse than a pair of drunk troopers at the end of a week of leave," Cloud put in dryly. Sephiroth had said more than once that he didn't know whether to declare the two of them 'hopeless' or simply 'amusing'. Zack had taken just as much delight in trying to get their general to smile and laugh as he had with Cloud, and with a surprising amount of success.

Up until the end, anyway. Sometimes Cloud wondered if the general wouldn't have snapped if they'd tried just a little harder to get the man to relax, or if the fact that they'd gotten Sephiroth to laugh at all was just an indication that Zack could wring a smile from a stone.

But he wasn't going to think about that, or any of the rest of the depressing things that had come after, he decided gamely. He was having too much fun playing with Zack as if nothing had ever come between them. And the shock on Tifa's face was priceless.


	6. Chapter 6

"So what are you going to do now?" Tifa asked as they sat around toying with the last of the sandwiches. Cloud and Zack had eaten their fill, teasing each other the whole while. She was still feeling a little bemused about this side of Cloud that she'd never seen or known existed, but once she'd gotten over the initial shock she'd started to enjoy watching him trying not to smile. Thankfully he failed more often than he succeeded. He really was beautiful when he smiled.

"Now in the next ten minutes, ten days, or ten months?" Zack replied, arching an eyebrow. "Honestly, the answer to all three is 'I don't know'. When we were on the run towards Midgar I had a half-cocked notion of setting myself up as a sort of mercenary, but..."

"You could always come work for me," Cloud told him, another small smile playing over his lips. "I think I'd like being the superior for a change. I'm running a delivery service. There are still a lot of monsters out there, and with the lack of available power there isn't much travel or communication going on between cities."

"So, basically you go out racing around on your bike and fighting monsters, and not only do you get whatever the monster hides and the like are worth, you also get _paid_?" Zack asked, and Cloud nodded. A mischievous smile spread over the older man's face. "Sounds like a sweet deal to me! I'm in. I'll even call you 'sir' if you like."

Snickering, Cloud covered it with one hand. "I'll think about it," he said when he'd recovered. "The idea does have a certain appeal."

"You'll have to start answering your _phone_ if you want to make enough to pay two of you," Tifa reminded Cloud, nudging his shin with one foot. "Where are you going to live, Zack? Most places aren't as badly damaged as Edge. Will you go home to Gongaga?"

"Home? Home is Midgar," Zack shook his head. "Gongaga is where I grew up. I'm staying right here, this is where everything that matters to me is." He glanced briefly at Cloud, and smiled. "I'll figure something out. I noticed they're still working on housing. Do they have shelters set up somewhere for those of us without anything?"

"You're not going to the shelters!" Tifa exclaimed, frowning at him. "As if I'd let you go off when we've got space here." She hadn't missed the faintly panicked look in Cloud's eyes when she'd asked if Zack would go back to Gongaga, either. Really, she couldn't blame him. He finally had his friend back, of course he wouldn't want to be separated.

"You might have to bed down on a pallet on the floor," she continued doggedly, "but there _is_ space. It will do at least until you can find somewhere else."

"We could fix up the church?" Cloud offered hesitantly, not sure if the suggestion would be taken as sacrilege. "It's big enough. We could section off one of the parts the garden doesn't occupy and turn it into a couple of rooms. If I asked Reeve to help we could probably even manage some sort of water system, though I wouldn't drink anything that came out of that sector."

"That's a great idea!" Zack lit up, his eyes gleaming more from excitement than mako. He couldn't think of a better place to live than near the garden that had been such an important part of the happiest time in his life. Really, it was so obvious he was amazed he'd even needed to think about it. Of course the church would be 'home'. It practically had been, anyway.

"We can clear out the debris, and use the rest of the free space as a practice area," he continued, gesturing widely as his enthusiasm flared. "And as a place to put together that bike you promised me," he added with a grin to Cloud. "Until then I guess I'll just have to keep riding with you, or borrow someone else's. Or catch a chocobo somewhere, maybe." He laughed. "Hades, we could even stable it in the garden - though if Aerith's spirit really is still hanging around there, she might not appreciate having her flowers munched on. At least we can be sure she won't mind us living there."

"Us?" Cloud repeated, his eyes snapping up from his intense contemplation of his sandwich remains, at the same time Tifa exclaimed, "Both of you?"

Cloud had been struggling to resign himself to the idea of Zack living somewhere away from him, reminding himself that it wasn't like the church was _that_ far from the bar. And they'd be seeing each other practically every day, probably. More if they worked together. But it still hadn't been long enough that he could be comfortable with the idea of letting Zack out of his sight for hours, _days_ at a time.

It had never even occurred to him that Zack would want to live _with_ him. The fact that the older man had just casually _assumed_ they would be staying together made something warm and tight form in his chest.

"Er." Zack glanced back and forth between Cloud's dumbfounded look and Tifa's dismayed one. "Um. Right, I guess you already live _here_ , don't you?" he realized sheepishly. Of course Cloud already had a place to live. It was seeing the spare stuff the blond kept at the church that made him forget. That, and the desire to keep his friend close to him.

Looking at them both, Tifa swallowed. It was so glaringly obvious that neither of them wanted to be separated that they might as well have hung out a neon sign. "It's not like he doesn't sleep there more than here half the time," she made herself say, rolling her eyes, and was glad that her tone came out exasperated rather than hurt. "You might as well make it official. Maybe I can get you to visit more often than I could get you to come home!"

Stricken, Cloud winced. "Tifa..." he started awkwardly, then stopped because he didn't know what to say. He had to say _something_ , though. "I don't... it's not..."

"Stop," she said, and put a finger firmly over his mouth to hush him. Her smile was wry, but her eyes were sad. "Cloud, it's okay, really. I know you've been struggling with a lot of things, and I know you're doing your best. Maybe we need to take a step back before we can go forward again." She'd been thinking something like that for a while now, actually, but hadn't wanted to suggest it for fear that Cloud would take it as some kind of rejection. The _last_ thing she'd wanted was him thinking she was hinting that she didn't want him around!

But if he wasn't feeling so pressured to come 'home' and play whatever role it was he thought they expected of him - provider, protector, even father-figure to the kids - then maybe he really _would_ come back more often. She knew he loved them, all three of them, but sometimes when he looked at them she'd seen fear in his eyes. Fear that he would fail them, or fear that he couldn't be what they needed, she wasn't sure.

If being with Zack could make Cloud relax like this, then eventually if she was lucky he might relax enough to realize that they just wanted him _there_ with them, regardless of any role he might or might not play.

"Maybe," Cloud acknowledged, ducking his head both to get out from under Tifa's finger and to avoid looking her in the eyes. "I just..."

Feeling awkwardly like he was in the middle of something private, Zack leaned back in his chair and stayed out of it. Cloud had been a little vague on exactly what the status of his relationship with Tifa was; more than friendship but still less than lovers was the vibe Zack was getting, but he could be wrong. Whatever it was, his presence had obviously just thrown a monkey-wrench into the works.

"As long as you realize you're always welcome here," Tifa told him, and glanced at Zack with another smile that reached her eyes a little better than the last had. "Both of you. In fact, Cloud, you'd _better_ be showing up on a regular basis, or Marlene and Denzel are going to do something drastic!"

Chuckling softly, Zack grinned back at her. "Well, we can't have that. Far be it from me to deny the wishes of a cute little girl like Marlene. I'll just have to make sure he doesn't have any excuses. With two of us on the job, he can't claim work is interfering! _And_ I'll see that his phone stays on."

"Zack!" Cloud looked put-out, but he couldn't exactly object. It was true, he did tend to use work as an excuse. He felt guilty every time he did it, but the guilt hadn't stopped him.

Zack never had tolerated him running and hiding, though. He had no doubts the older man would make good on his promise to ensure Cloud visited regularly.

"Well, that settles that, then," Tifa declared. To her own surprise, she felt more pragmatic than hurt about the whole thing. It really wasn't as if they would be seeing any _less_ of Cloud. And if it helped, so much the better.

Maybe it was just that it was difficult to be upset about anything when Zack was grinning at her with the unrestrained enthusiasm of a little kid, his smile inviting her to share in his happiness. It was a trait he shared with Aerith, though the half-Cetra had been sweet about it rather than gleeful. Small wonder the former SOLDIER was so good at getting Cloud to come out of his shell.

"I will take you up on the offer of floor space while we get the church ready, though," Zack declared. "And I'll earn my keep, too. I don't know much about bartending, but I can wash dishes with the best of them!"

"Good!" Tifa smiled back at him. "You can start right now, then. Cloud, you show him where everything is, and I'll go find some extra blankets and pillows. You want me to put them in your office?"

"If you can find room," Cloud agreed, nodding. He'd set up a cot in the tiny room that had served as his 'office' while he'd been living with Tifa, and had been sleeping there since the geostigma had been cured. He hadn't quite wanted to jump right back into his previous living arrangements with Tifa, worried that sharing a room with her would only emphasize the fact that he wasn't yet ready to go to the next step in their relationship.

There wasn't really enough room for one bed in there, let alone two, but they would manage somehow. They were used to sharing tight quarters; the tents Shinra issued for field missions were pathetically small. Of course, he'd been a scrawny little runt back then, which had made it easier.

Cloud helped Zack carry the sandwich plates back into the kitchen. There was already a small stack of unwashed glasses and the like piled by the sink, even though the bar hadn't been open that long before Tifa had kicked everyone out. Without asking Zack started running the sink and putting the mugs and glasses in, and Cloud pointed at the dish soap and cloth before picking up a drying rag. At least the water in this sector no longer stank or ran brown, though he still wouldn't drink it without boiling it first.

"I'm sorry if I caused problems back there," Zack apologized as he started washing the first of the dishes. "I didn't mean to come between you and your girl, I just wasn't thinking. You don't have to live with me, you know." He smiled ruefully. "I'm a big boy, I can live on my own, honest. Once we get this reluctance to be apart out of our systems, anyway."

Flushing, Cloud ducked his head and grabbed the glass Zack handed him to dry. "Tifa... it's not... it's more complicated than that," he finally managed to get out. "We're still trying to figure out where we stand, and how things are going to work. She might be right, and some distance will be good for us. Give us a chance to take things slow instead of rushing in too fast this time."

And he really needed to figure out what he was going to do about this newly remembered attraction to Zack, and how that would affect his feelings for Tifa, Cloud thought to himself with a grimace. To say that it complicated matters was an understatement.

Glancing over, Zack saw the grimace and offered a sympathetic smile in return. "It's always complicated," he said. "Granted I think your entire life comes under the heading of 'Pretty _Damn_ Complicated', but still. If a relationship is easy, then either it's not serious or you're just not paying attention."

"You and Aerith had it easy," Cloud retorted, rolling his eyes and trying not to look wistful. "I may still be missing a lot of memories, but I remember that much. You were like, the perfect couple. I always envied you."

"You think?" Zack raised an eyebrow at him. "Her mother hated Shinra and everything to do with it. She was in hiding from Hojo and the Turks, and just being connected to a SOLDIER was dangerous for her. We almost never got to _see_ each other, I was always off on missions. And Aerith may have been the sweetest and most forgiving person on the face of the planet, but she was neither perfect nor a pushover. We argued sometimes."

"You guys fought?" Cloud blinked, shocked at the very idea. Oh, he knew Aerith could be stubborn in her own way, but he couldn't imagine actually _fighting_ with her. And Zack was just about the most easy-going person he'd ever known.

"Sure, once in a while," Zack shrugged. "We made up fast, and they were never big fights, but it wasn't a perfect relationship, Cloud. So don't worry too much if things aren't always smooth with Tifa, okay? You both care about each other, and you're still _trying_ to make it work, and trying is about ninety-percent of any good relationship."

Deciding it would just be best not to mention the _new_ complications, like Zack himself, Cloud just nodded. Maybe his friend was right, and things would work out eventually as long as they didn't give up. If even Zack and Aerith had faced problems, then there might be hope for Cloud and Tifa yet.

* * *

_The world was awash in shades of green, and all other colours had vanished. It would actually have been better if it had all been black and white; somehow having everything entirely one colour was worse than a simple lack of colour._

_He knew this particular green, was far more familiar with it than he'd ever wanted to be. Mako surrounded him, pressing against him and flooding his vision. He was immersed in it; more solid than a gas, less tangible than a true liquid, he could feel it against his skin all over his body._

_Besides the monochrome quality, the image before him was further warped by the curve of glass between him and it. The tank wall was thick enough to cause a significant distortion when you were looking out from the inside. Like the colour, it was a phenomenon he was so used to he hardly even noticed the extra effort it took to make out what was on the other side._

_A desk, books, and lots of computer controls. There could be no mistaking it; he was back in the lab where he'd spent so many years as a helpless captive. He struggled to fight free of the clinging liquid, to scream a denial, but the mako swallowed his cries and made movement as difficult as wading through molasses. He couldn't pound on the glass to try to break it, unable to get any force behind the blows. Searching for a weakness, his fingers found traces of scratches in the glass, messages passed back and forth during the time when they'd still had the strength and focus for such things._

_This was the Shinra mansion, then. From what he could see, it had not changed at all. Did that mean he was dreaming?_

_Or, horrible thought, did that mean everything _else_ had been a dream? The escape, the year spent on the run, the events on the cliff, even the second lab... it wasn't impossible. Mako could play strange tricks on a man's mind, and he'd been exposed to it long enough to drive anyone else mad. Maybe long enough to drive even him mad._

_No, he couldn't let himself think that way. Down that road lay _true_ madness. This was a dream, a nightmare, though an oddly lucid one. All he had to do was wake up._

_Easier said than done, unfortunately. He tried hurting himself, tried closing his eyes and focusing hard on reality, tried everything he could think of, and it made no difference. Still he remained trapped in the world of green behind the glass._

_Something moved just beyond his line of sight, and he tensed. It would be Hojo, or one of the lab technicians. That was okay, it was still just part of the dream. As bad as the nightmares could get, they couldn't _really_ hurt him, because he wasn't really here._

_Right?_

_To his shock and alarm, however, it wasn't Hojo or a tech that moved into his vision. Even through the distortion of green liquid and glass he would know that sweeping silver hair anywhere, and the glow of the man's green eyes seemed to outshine even the green of the mako. Sephiroth stood before him, studying him as if he was a bug under glass._

_"Still you resist," the former general murmured. The glass and liquid should have distorted his words, but they seemed to echo directly in the mind, inescapable and inexorable. "Your spirit is admirable, but ultimately futile. I will consume you in the end, and then I will destroy the rest of the world in punishment for the sins of humanity. And this time _you_ will be the instrument of its destruction." Sephiroth smiled - smirked, rather, a condescending expression that made it easier not to think of this as the same man he'd once admired so much._

_"But do keep fighting," the silver-haired man encouraged him. "It is most amusing. All you are truly succeeding in doing is wearing yourself down. In the meantime, I will be desecrating and destroying everything you hold dear. Perhaps I'll even allow you to watch, once I have you appropriately cowed."_

_Wildly he thrashed, struggling against the resistance of the mako to try to break through the glass and get at the man on the other side. Sephiroth laughed at him, a horrible twisted sound that made him want to stop fighting so he could cover his ears and hide from it. But even that wouldn't help, not when the man's voice was in his head like this._

_Thumping and scraping his fists against the tank wall, he choked on his own scream of defiance and denial. He would not let Sephiroth destroy everything. He would not let himself be used in the process. He would not _allow it.__

_The effort was futile, as they both had known it would be. The tanks were designed to withstand attempts at escape made by creatures even stronger than a SOLDIER 1st Class, and he had no hope of breaking free by sheer brute strength. Cunning wouldn't work either, not with Sephiroth standing right there watching him._

_Still, he couldn't make himself stop trying. He battered at the glass, shouting denials in his mind because he couldn't shout them out loud, and all the while Sephiroth kept laughing._

_"You're mine," the former general told him, his eyes glowing with victory and power. "I will never let you go, and you will never escape me. You may slip free briefly for a while, but you will always end up right back here."_

_The worst part was that there was no insanity in his slit-pupil eyes, or at least not the sort that caused people to be locked away for safety. Sephiroth looked perfectly sane and rational, as if he was holding a pleasant conversation with a friend. Yet it was that very appearance of sanity that made him so utterly bone-chilling in his madness._

_"Now, be good," Sephiroth commanded him with another patronizing smirk. "I have things to do. There is so much lost time to make up for, and I can't have you interfering." Turning, the man walked away, his silver hair swaying behind him like a living cloak, reflecting firelight that wasn't there._

_Gathering himself, he made one last massive effort to be free of his green prison, throwing his whole body at the glass. He must... get... free..._

With a gasp that nearly choked him, Zack startled himself violently awake. The haze of green overlaying everything was gone, leaving behind true darkness, but his movements were still hampered by something. With a strangled yell he thrashed his way free of the restraints, panicked by the remnants of his nightmare, and found that the only things hindering him had been his blankets.

Cool night air poured in through the window; Cloud must have opened it at some point, because Zack was fairly certain it had been closed when they'd gone to bed. He was grateful for the shock of it, his breath sobbing in his throat as he all but threw himself out of his nest of blankets and staggered over to look outside.

Edge was mostly quiet in the small hours of the night, unlike the underside of Midgar. But there was enough activity that Zack could see lights and hear noise in the distance, and slowly his racing heart calmed as he reassured himself that everything was as he remembered it. Only a dream, then. Another nightmare, one among the many that would surely plague him for the rest of his life.

Sighing, he turned and saw Cloud draped over his narrow cot, his blankets much neater than Zack's. Not surprising, really; Cloud had always been a less restless sleeper than Zack. Looking closer, though, Zack winced when he saw the deep furrow in the younger man's brow and the way his visible hand was clenched into a fist around the sheet. At first glance Cloud's sleep looked peaceful, but obviously it was anything but.

Figuring his friend's nightmare probably wasn't any more enjoyable than his own had been, Zack moved forward and cautiously leaned over the blond. "Hey, wake up," he called softly, reaching out to touch Cloud lightly on one shoulder. "It's okay, it's just a dream..."

With a cry Cloud flailed out at him, and only Zack's quick reflexes kept him from getting a fist in the face. In the next moment Zack had his hand clamped over the blond's mouth, muffling his continued shouting. "Cloud! Hey, it's me! It's Zack, calm down!" Zack implored him. He didn't dare move his hand, or the whole house would be woken by the noise. "C'mon, kid, wake up!"

Something about his words or voice made it through the haze of sleep; slowly Cloud stopped struggling, looking up at Zack with dazed eyes. When he hadn't made any noise in at least ten seconds, Zack cautiously eased his hand away. "Zack?" Cloud murmured, sounding just as confused as he looked. "What... where... I thought..."

"It was just a dream," Zack assured him, moving now to stroke his hand through Cloud's mussed spikes. Not ruffling his hair, but almost petting him. "I had a nightmare and I got up to get some air at the window, then I saw you were dreaming too and it didn't look pleasant."

"It wasn't." Cloud grimaced, and shoved any and all thoughts of his dreams away from his conscious mind. "Thanks for waking me. I didn't hurt you, did I?" Zack's hand in his hair felt good; better than he should have let it, probably. It was all he could do not to tilt his head to encourage more, but he felt enough like a little kid seeking reassurance as it was.

"Nah, no worries," Zack shook his head. "I got out of the way fast enough, and I kept you from making too much noise."

"Thanks," Cloud said gratefully. He pushed himself upright, letting the sheets fall away from him. He was in his boxers again; he kept a pair of sleep pants at Tifa's, but he'd given them to Zack since the older man still didn't have anything of the sort to wear in bed. Now he was glad for his generosity, because if Zack had been naked Cloud thought he'd probably have ended up doing _something_ to embarrass himself. Having him half naked was bad enough.

Perching himself on the edge of the bed, Zack faced him. "Dunno about you, but I doubt I'll be getting back to sleep any time soon," he told Cloud with a sigh. "What do you usually do when you're up at night? Go work yourself to exhaustion somewhere?"

"If I'm in the church or on the road, yeah," Cloud sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "Here, I mostly just lie in bed and stare at the ceiling. Tifa worries if she hears me leave, and I swear Marlene has some kind of supernatural sense for when I might be sneaking out on her."

"Ah, well." Zack chuckled softly. "At least now we can lie in bed and stare at the ceiling together. Misery loves company, and all that. Shove over."

"What?" Certain he'd misheard, or at least misunderstood his friend's meaning, Cloud stared at him. Zack made a shooing motion towards the wall, and Cloud eyed him in disbelief. "Zack, we've got about as much chance of both fitting in this cot as a snowball has against Ifrit's flame." Even if he'd been as small as he was when he'd been a trooper, they couldn't have managed it. He barely fit on the damn thing all by himself!

"Oh, ye of little faith," Zack teased him, grinning. "Shove over, I'm serious. I want the company. We may not be able to get back to sleep, but we can at least stop ourselves from getting tension headaches."

In the end they had to fold the cot up and shove it in a corner, setting Cloud's blankets on the floor next to Zack's and making a 'double bed' that way. It took them a few awkward moments before they got themselves sorted out, but they eventually settled on their sides facing each other with Zack's arm extended beneath Cloud's pillow and the blond's head tucked against Zack's shoulder.

"Why does this feel so familiar?" Cloud wondered, grateful for the dim light that masked his blush. He was _sure_ he'd never been in this position with Zack before, and his imagination was on overdrive from the older man's proximity. Why had this seemed like a good idea when Zack had suggested it?

Wait, it hadn't. Well, that was fairly typical of things Zack suggested - Cloud would object and then find himself going along with it anyway, not quite certain how or when he'd ended up agreeing.

"Because we slept like this for almost a year," Zack replied, his voice warm and intimate in the close darkness. "I'm not surprised you don't remember, though. You were only rarely aware enough to realize I was there."

"During the escape," Cloud realized, and nodded. Then he winced. Had he been _snuggling up to Zack_ in his delirium? He wouldn't put it past himself. It could have been an instinctive attempt to seek out comfort, but still. He would never live down the humiliation!

He wasn't even sure how to ask without embarrassing himself further. "Ah... how did we end up like this, though?" he asked cautiously. Zack shrugged, making his arm shift under Cloud.

"I wanted to keep you close enough to be sure you wouldn't wander off if you woke up in one of your semi-lucid phases," the ex-SOLDIER explained. "And just to reassure myself, I guess. Having you right there with me meant I remembered the situation right away when I woke from a nightmare."

Not his fault, then. Cloud relaxed and tried not to sigh too obviously in relief. "I'm... glad I could do something for you, then," he said softly. "Since I wasn't much use any other way."

"Don't say that. Don't ever say that!" The fervour in Zack's voice surprised Cloud, and he thought it surprised Zack a little as well. Cloud looked up to find Zack's indigo eyes glowing at him fiercely from inches away. "Don't you realize how having you there kept me going?" the older man continued in a slightly less intense tone. "It gave me a purpose, something to focus on. I couldn't give up, because that would mean leaving you to suffer. There's a reason I stopped fighting when they told me you were dead, Cloud. Don't ever think you did nothing to help on that trip from hell."

Flushed, and feeling both pleased and chastised, Cloud nodded and edged himself marginally closer. He could feel Zack's body heat across the small space between them, and it was soothing to know his friend was so close. Closing his eyes, he breathed in Zack's scent and gave himself permission to enjoy the proximity for just a few minutes. It wouldn't hurt anything, and Zack was the one who had initiated it; he could feel the older man relaxing against him slowly, soothed by his presence. Zack was right; if they were going to lie awake all night, they might as well do it in such a way that was a little more relaxing. Just for a few minutes...

Zack smiled to himself as he heard Cloud's breathing even out into sleep, and the blond tucked himself a little closer with a soft murmur. He'd missed this closeness, he recognized. It was a habit formed from necessity, but it was still nice. Not to mention it was about a hundred times more pleasant when Cloud was actually shifting and making tiny noises in his sleep, as opposed to lying unnaturally still and quiet in Zack's arms. Pity he probably wouldn't be able to get away with this often, at least not without taking unfair advantage of Cloud's crush on him, because it really was nice.

To his own surprise, Zack caught himself yawning and realized he was drifting off again as well. He'd honestly expected not to be able to sleep, but having Cloud against him seemed to have chased off the worst of the reaction from the night terrors. Shifting, Zack angled his head so his cheek was pillowed on Cloud's hair, and closed his eyes. Maybe, just maybe, they'd both be able to get a few hours of unbroken sleep this way.


	7. Chapter 7

Waking up slowly was a rare luxury for those in Shinra's Security Division, SOLDIERs most of all. When they weren't on base for reveille to sound out bright and early, they were in the field and up long before dawn to get started on their work for the day. Only on leave - that infrequently granted and oh-so-precious commodity the 1st Class almost never got - did they have a chance to wake at their leisure.

So when Zack drifted partly awake and realized he was warm, comfortable, and somewhere quiet, he let himself remain relaxed and come out of sleep gradually. 'Comfortable' meant he wasn't in the field, and 'quiet' meant he was somewhere private. The warm, lithe body pressed up against him put the clincher on it; if he was sleeping with Aerith, then he had to be on leave.

Shifting, he draped his arm over her waist and pulled her a little closer, still without opening his eyes. She was curled up on her side facing him, but she tangled her legs with his and let him draw them more together. Content, he settled in again, tilting his head so he could bury it in her hair. In a minute he would wake a little more, and maybe see if he could find a very _pleasant_ way to wake her and take advantage of his too-infrequent time with her, but spending another minute just enjoying her presence wouldn't hurt anything.

Except she didn't smell right. Not the living earth or warm sunlight scent he'd expected, but the harsher tang of metal and leather. And instead of the indefinable scent of 'life' that she somehow always carried with her, there was the sharp stench of mako.

Frowning, Zack abandoned the opportunity to laze in bed and pushed himself quickly towards full awareness, his muscles going tense as he forced his eyes open. For a sickening moment all he could see was silver through a haze of green mako.

Then, just as he tensed to yell and jerk himself away, he blinked and the world suddenly had colour again. Bright, sunny colour; soft gold strands of hair against lightly tanned skin, with the morning sunlight pouring in through the window to spark a halo of light off it.

Not Aerith. Definitely not Sephiroth, but not Aerith, either. Letting his breath out slowly Zack forced himself to relax, grateful that he hadn't woken Cloud with his antics. The younger man was still soundly asleep, and the dark rings under his eyes testified to his need for it. Zack knew all about nightmares and how they could eat at you until it felt like you never slept at all; he'd lived with it the entire year he'd been on the run with Cloud.

If Cloud was dreaming now, though, it didn't show. His brow was smooth, his face soft in sleep and looking much younger than Zack knew him to be. When Zack relaxed he murmured something incoherent and snuggled closer, his head bent so it was resting on Zack's shoulder, and Zack couldn't help but smile. It was adorable, and if Cloud knew he was doing it he'd be mortified.

He had _no_ idea how he could possibly have mistaken Cloud for Aerith, even half asleep and with his eyes closed. Cloud was a match for him in size, whereas Aerith had fit into the curve of his arms perfectly. Cloud was also significantly broader in the shoulders and a hell of a lot more muscled than she had been. He could feel the strength in the legs tangled with his, feel the muscles rippling in Cloud's back and side where Zack's arm was draped over his waist.

Despite the differences it felt _good_ to have the younger man there. It made Zack feel warm and satisfied in a way he associated with Aerith, so maybe that was why. It certainly wasn't a _bad_ thing to have a hard, strong body against his instead of Aerith's soft lushness. In fact, Zack ventured to say it felt just as good, though in different ways. He'd been with guys a few times, before he'd met Aerith; men in his squad, or other SOLDIERs met in the field who'd decided a bit of tension release would benefit them both. He'd never had a chance to wake up next to any of them before, though, so this was a novel experience.

In fact, it would probably be even more fun to wake a guy up with sex than it would be with a girl. Certainly easier, since just about every guy woke up at least partially aroused, and it was easier to get at the interesting spots on a guy without waking them.

When he realized he was stroking his fingers along the curve of Cloud's spine, Zack groaned and squeezed his eyes shut, silently cursing himself. What was he _thinking_? He should _not_ be considering how much fun it would be to have Cloud wake in the middle of sex. That was wrong on so many levels it wasn't even funny. For one thing, this was _not_ an established relationship like he'd had with Aerith, and it would be nothing short of rape to touch the younger man without his permission. For another, it would be seriously wrong of him to take advantage of his friend's need for comfort after a nightmare to start something. Not to mention that he'd have to be the worst kind of cad to play on the other man's crush like that. And on top of all _that_ , there was a reason that making a move on your subordinate was a court martial offence!

That was when it hit Zack, like a Bolt3 spell to the head. _Cloud wasn't his subordinate any more_. Nor was he underage. He wasn't even _breakable_ \- he was every bit as strong and tough as Zack, probably more so after Zack spending all that time in the lab instead of keeping himself in condition.

What Cloud _was_ , was a strong, extremely attractive _adult_ who already occupied one of the biggest places in Zack's heart. And whether her spirit was hanging around or not, Zack was pretty sure that Aerith being dead qualified him as 'single'.

Every wayward thought Zack had ever had about his blond shadow came home to roost now, multiplied tenfold. His body was urgently reminding him just _how_ long it had been since he'd had any kind of release; that sort of thing hadn't exactly been high on his list of priorities in the rare moments of privacy he'd had in the lab. Cloud wasn't off limits any more, and while all the arguments Zack had been giving himself for why he shouldn't wake his friend with a handjob were still valid, all he had to do was wake the other man _first_ and he knew Cloud would be happy to give him all the permission he wanted. It wasn't wrong to play on Cloud's crush if Zack was planning to follow through, right?

Taking a deep breath, Zack struggled to rein himself in. He wasn't eighteen any more, damn it, and he was _not_ going to rush into something like this because he'd woken up horny and Cloud was willing and available.

Of course, it was an unassailable rule of the universe that the worst possible scenario would always be the one to happen. Before he could actually register the importance of the sound of soft footsteps in the hall, there was a tap on the door and one of the very important reasons why Cloud _was_ still off limits stuck her head inside.

"Hey guys, what do you want for break...fast?" Tifa's cheerful words trailed off in shock and horror as she took in the scene before her. She hadn't thought twice before coming in, because Cloud was always up with the dawn and they'd been living together long enough to be comfortable casually invading each other's space. If she'd been thinking, she might have waited for someone to answer the door out of concern for Zack's comfort, but never in a million years would she have anticipated this.

'This' being Cloud curled up on the floor with Zack instead of in his own bed, lying _in_ Zack's arms and looking far more comfortable about it than he'd ever been holding _her_ while they slept, even during the best part of their relationship. If either of them was wearing anything it was hidden beneath the sheet that had been pulled up to their waists.

Under different circumstances Tifa might have appreciated the view, but the only thought that was making itself heard through the whirl of emotions was 'so _that's_ why we never had sex'.

"Tifa..." Zack's deep voice, hoarse with sleep - and probably something else - jerked her out of her thoughts. She blushed such a bright red she could feel her cheeks and ears heating.

"I'm sorry!" she blurted out, and backed away hastily. "I'm so... oh gods, I'm... I'll just... I'll be downstairs when you're ready for breakfast!" Not even thinking to close the door again behind her, Tifa turned and fled down the hall.

Cursing, Zack fought to untangle himself from the nest of Cloud and blankets. The look on her face when she'd seen them had been heartbroken, and he _had_ to fix this. _Now_ , before he caused an irreparable rift in his friend's relationship.

His movement finally dragged Cloud out of sleep, and the blond blinked up at him drowsily. "What...?" he mumbled, rubbing at his eyes with one hand and yawning. "Zack?"

"It's nothing, just... go back to sleep," Zack hushed him. "I'll take care of it."

Before he could push himself to his feet, Cloud locked his hand around Zack's wrist and looked up into his friend's eyes. He could tell it wasn't 'nothing', but his sleep-fogged brain was still too unfocused to think anything beyond that. "You'll be there when I wake up, right?" he demanded, still needing to hear the reassurance.

"I promise," Zack agreed, his eyes softening. That earned him a sleepy smile that made him want to lean down and... damn it, he should _not_ be thinking about kissing his friend while said friend's _girlfriend_ was fleeing with entirely the wrong idea about what had happened last night.

Cloud had released him, though, content with the promise. Zack scrambled up and grabbed the first shirt that came to hand, not caring which of them had worn it the day before. With that and the sleep pants Cloud had loaned him he judged himself decent enough, and bolted for the door.

Despite his weight Zack could move quietly when he wanted to, and he strained his ears to listen for Tifa as he pelted down the stairs from the 'office'. If she'd gone to her room to cry or something this could get awkward, because he doubted she would let him in the room willingly. Thankfully the sound of something sizzling in a pan and the scent of frying meat told him she'd gone to the kitchen instead. Now, if only the kids weren't present.

Whichever god had seen fit to send Tifa to look in on them at the worst possible moment had apparently lost interest in them, because Zack's prayer was answered and he found her alone in the room. Bracing himself against the doorway with one hand, Zack studied her for a moment to try to judge her mood.

Trying not to do something stupid like sniffle, Tifa cracked eggs into the pan with the bacon and focused on that instead of everything else whirling through her head. If she could have she'd have gone down to the cellar where she kept a punching bag and some mats for her to practice on; she really needed to beat the crap out of something right about now, and a good workout always helped her empty her mind. She knew she was going to have to face this sooner or later, but she was hoping for 'later'.

Unfortunately breakfast needed to be made; the kids would be up soon and wanting food, and gods help them all if Cloud came down hungry and tried to cook for himself. For all she knew Zack might be a good cook, but...

But that was bringing her right back to thinking about the things she didn't want to think about, so she veered away from that line of thought. Rubbing at her eyes with the back of her wrist, she fiercely ordered herself to stop crying before someone came down and saw her like this.

When Zack saw her wipe away tears, he winced. Yeah, he'd fucked this one up royally. "Tifa," he said, and she jumped. She'd been about to flip the contents of the pan by tossing them and catching them again; without intending to he'd managed to time his interruption so it came at the worst possible moment and the eggs and bacon went all over the floor and stove. "Oh, shit, I'm sorry!" he apologized, wide-eyed as he moved forward to help her clean it up.

"No, it's okay, I've got it," she assured him hastily, surreptitiously wiping at her face again before turning to face him and bending to grab for the fallen bacon. "Really, it's fine," she tried to insist when he knelt to help.

"It's not fine, and I don't just mean the food," Zack said, finally managing to meet her eyes and wincing when he saw the expression she couldn't quite hide. "Listen, Tifa, it's _not_ what it looked like, I swear."

She laughed, and if it came out sounding a little bitter she thought she was entitled. "Zack, it's okay," she said wearily, standing and throwing the ruined food into the garbage. "I'm a big girl, I can handle it. At least now I know why it felt like I never really had all of his attention; he'd never had a chance to get over you because he didn't realize he _needed_ to."

She felt like an idiot for not realizing the truth earlier. If not before Zack returned, then she certainly should have noticed _afterwards_. The way Cloud had kept glancing at Zack and then away again quickly while they'd told their story the night before - she'd thought it meant he was hiding something, but it had never even occurred to her that the 'something' might be attraction.

"That's not... well, no, that's probably partially true," Zack was forced to admit with a grimace. He stood and watched as she grabbed more food out of the fridge, once again refusing to meet his eyes. Hell. How was he going to fix this? "He did have a crush on me and it may well have affected him subconsciously; he's certainly still blushing around me the same way he used to, so he hasn't gotten over it." He rubbed at the back of his head with one hand, sheepish. "But honestly, on my honour, what you just saw was _not_ what it looked like. Cloud and I are not and never have been sleeping together."

Not that he hadn't been _thinking_ about it at the moment she'd walked in, and that made things a little sticky, but Zack figured she shouldn't hold it against _Cloud_ that Zack had woken up a horny letch.

Tifa wanted to snap at him not to patronize her, or ask if she really looked that stupid, because what the hell _else_ could it have been other than what it looked like? She of all people was intimately familiar with Cloud's need for personal space, and she just could not picture him sleeping even half that close to someone. Let alone being all tangled up together like they had been.

But there was something in Zack's eyes, something steady and sincere, that promised he would never lie to her. She hesitated to trust it, but at the same time her gut instinct was telling her that he was being honest. "All right, then," she said, looking at him with a challenging expression. "Convince me. What _was_ it?"

Sighing, Zack leaned back against the counter and crossed his arms over his chest, looking back at her soberly. "Nightmares," he said succinctly. "We were both having them last night. Sometimes it helps to have someone else who understands, _really_ understands, with you." His eyes darkened further. "You can be sympathetic to him when he dreams about the labs, but you can never understand. And trust me when I say we're _both_ grateful that you can't, so don't feel bad about it."

Well, Tifa could certainly understand that. She'd seen Cloud suffering from nightmares often enough herself, and afterwards he'd invariably left the bed to go walk it off no matter how much she'd tried to offer comfort. "That explains why you ended up sleeping on the floor together," she allowed, not willing to believe just yet. "It doesn't explain the way you were tangled up together. I've never seen him sleep that close to someone. Or even _get_ that close to someone, willingly."

"Ah, yeah, that. Right. That was mostly a matter of habit," Zack explained awkwardly. "See, when we were on the run, sometimes he'd wake up enough to move under his own power, though he never really seemed to understand what was going on around him. If I didn't keep an eye on him, he tended to wander off. So I took to sleeping with him in my arms so I'd wake up if he tried to get up. And," he admitted, ducking his head, "I found it comforting to have him that close. Helped keep the nightmares away then, too."

Oddly, it was the moment when he lowered his eyes that convinced her, along with the slight flush that infused his cheeks at the words. She'd seen exactly that expression often enough on Cloud, when he was admitting something he thought she might think less of him for. And if there was one thing she would _never_ suspect Zack of, it was molesting Cloud while the younger man was comatose, so it couldn't be that sort of embarrassment.

Wrapping her arms around herself, Tifa turned away to get a moment of privacy to think. Zack had admitted that Cloud had a crush on him. Well, that was glaringly obvious now that she knew what she was looking at, so he couldn't have hidden it. Zack's presence was going to change things in her relationship with Cloud, there was no way around that.

Then again, if it really was an unremembered crush that had been preventing Cloud from letting go of his past and moving on, maybe having Zack around would give him the chance to get over it. "So it's just one-sided?" she ventured cautiously. "You're not interested in him?"

To her dismay this time Zack's uncomfortable look clearly _was_ that sort of embarrassment. "I'd be lying if I said I'd never thought of him that way," he admitted, wincing. "I'm only human. But Tifa, I was his commanding officer, _and_ I had a girlfriend. I'm a flirt and I always have been, but I don't cheat. And I don't poach, either. I'm not going to try to steal him away from you."

Thinking about the looks Cloud had kept giving the older man, and the utterly _content_ expression that had been on his face when she'd seen him in Zack's arms, Tifa wasn't sure Zack would need to _try_. But that wasn't his fault, and she shouldn't take it out on him.

"He's not mine any more," she acknowledged painfully. "I'm not sure he ever really was. I mean, I was his crush before you were. Maybe he got over me and we've been clinging to something that's not there any more."

"Hey." Worried by the hurt in her eyes, Zack frowned and shook his head, reaching out to touch her lightly on the shoulder. "Listen, Tifa. Don't ever think he doesn't love you. Yeah, you guys were young enough that the promise he made you back then was probably out of infatuation, not real love. If he _had_ revealed himself at Nibelheim, the two of you likely would have spent a day or two being awkward and then acknowledged you were over each other. But what you two have been through in these last couple years? That kind of hell blows childish infatuations out of the water, or else turns them into something more real. He loves you. I heard it in his voice when he was talking about what all had happened, every time he mentioned you."

Startled that he knew about the promise Cloud had made her before leaving home, Tifa blinked up at him. "You know about that?" she asked, incredulous and a little embarrassed.

To her surprise, he laughed and gave her a genuinely delighted smile. "Are you kidding me? Tifa, I probably heard about _every_ moment he ever shared with you, half a hundred times each. He talked about you all the time. You were his reason for wanting to be a SOLDIER, so he could impress you and show you he was worth something. He always said he wanted to make sure he'd be strong enough to keep his promise to you if you ever needed him."

Something relaxed inside Tifa that had been hurting so long she hadn't even realized it was there. In those first days Cloud had been with AVALANCHE, when he'd denied remembering the promise and then shrugged it off when she'd reminded him, she had been hurt. Of course since then she'd learned about all the many and varied ways he'd been fucked in the head at the time, and she knew he couldn't really be held responsible for how he'd treated her at that time. Intellectually, she knew it; but not, apparently, emotionally.

If Cloud had said that about wanting to be strong enough to keep his promise, though, then he _hadn't_ really forgotten or stopped caring about it. It was just that it had been lost along with everything else. And maybe that shouldn't mean as much as it did, but she couldn't help feeling about a hundred times better about everything.

"Let's just not turn it into a competition," she said finally. "I can't say I won't be hurt if he turns to you now that you're back, but I want him to be happy. If it happens, it happens."

"All right, but I really don't think it will," Zack told her. As much as his wayward hormones were enjoying contemplating the thought of it, he really did believe Cloud would end up with her in the end. Unless Zack pushed the issue and took advantage of Cloud's crush on him, but that wouldn't be fair to any of them. "Once he's had a chance to get over the hero-worship of me, you'll see. I mean, sure, the two of us went through hell too, but he wasn't even conscious for most of it!"

"Maybe," Tifa agreed cautiously. She thought perhaps he was underestimating Cloud's feelings for him, but then again, what did _she_ know? Maybe Zack was right. It certainly seemed he knew Cloud better than she ever had. She wasn't going to give up; she'd never run from a fight in her life and she wasn't going to start now. But she didn't think it was quite as guaranteed as he was making it out to be.

"Where is he, anyway?" she asked, deciding it would be better to change the subject rather than keep thinking about it. "Hiding up in his office? I suppose he decided to let you come down and beard the dragon in her den first?" She rolled her eyes. Cloud was _very_ good at avoiding things he didn't want to deal with, which was why it was so bloody difficult to get him to stay home for long.

"Him?" Zack laughed and shook his head. "Sound asleep, probably. He kind of half woke up when I jumped up to chase after you, but he went right back to sleep again."

"What? Still?" Tifa was surprised. "It's almost eight already! He's usually been up for hours already." She'd been surprised enough to find him still in bed, but the surprise had been somewhat eclipsed by the shock of _which_ bed she'd found him still in.

"Huh?" Now it was Zack's turn to be startled. He looked at her, more than a little bemused. "Are we talking about the same Cloud Strife, here? The guy whose squadmates sometimes had to haul him bodily out of bed and throw him into a cold shower before he was awake enough to pass inspection?" He'd never known Cloud to willingly get out of bed before at least ten.

Frowning, Tifa tried to think if Cloud had been a late riser when they were kids. She honestly had no idea; it had been too long for her to remember if the occasions when they'd been together had been early morning or not. Certainly from the moment she'd found him outside the train station in Sector 7, he'd almost invariably been up with the sun. Or earlier.

"He's never slept well," she offered. "I guess maybe his dreams kept him from sleeping in. Still, I can't remember the last time I saw him sleep this late."

"Maybe he's just catching up on it," Zack suggested, but he pushed himself away from the counter. "I'll go check on him, though. Just in case."

"I'm coming with you," Tifa declared, using a towel to cover the raw breakfast ingredients she'd been ignoring and heading up the stairs. Now that she'd realized how odd it really was that Cloud would sleep so long, she was getting worried. Unless, of course, it was just another way he was reverting to old habits now that Zack was around.

She reached the door first, but Zack was taller than she was, so they were both able to see inside. Cloud was curled up on his side with one hand fisted in the blankets were Zack had been, his brow furrowed. Despite the fact that he was obviously dreaming, he was almost unnaturally still.

"Damn it," Zack swore under his breath. "Early riser or not, I think we'd better wake him up. That doesn't look pleasant." He started to move forward, but before he could stop her Tifa had knelt beside Cloud to shake him on the shoulder. "Tifa, don't...!"

"What..."? she glanced up and started to ask what was wrong, confused, but her touch had set off a reaction she hadn't expected. In an abrupt explosion of movement Cloud twisted and lunged for her, and the rest of her words were caught in a strangled yelp.

The lunge turned into a tackle, and she went down half under him. Before he could get a good grip or hit her further, however, she kicked up hard enough to throw him over her head and into the wall. She might not be a SOLDIER, but she sparred with him on a regular basis and she'd been strong enough to help him fight his way through the North Crater. He couldn't take her down that easily.

He hit the wall and the cot with a crash that didn't bode well for that cot ever opening again, and rebounded into another attack. Her attempt to ready herself to deflect him was spoiled when her foot got tangled in the blankets and she half tripped. She braced herself for the impact, twisting to take the blow on her shoulder instead of her face and knowing this was going to _hurt_.

Instead of Cloud's fist hitting her, though, Zack was suddenly _there_ between them like he'd appeared out of thin air. He caught Cloud's wrist and shifted his weight to throw the blond over his hip, sending him crashing into the cot again. Before Cloud could get up Zack was on him, twisting the hand he still held so that the younger man's arm was pinned against his back in a painful hold.

"Cloud!" Zack shouted, doing his best to apply enough pressure to let the pain shock Cloud into awareness without using so much his friend interpreted it as another attack. "Cloud, damn it, wake up! It's just us, Zack and Tifa!"

Cloud went still, his chest heaving as he panted for air, no longer struggling against Zack's hold but not declaring himself awake now, either. For a sickening instant pain stabbed through Zack's head and the world went green, like it had when he'd first woken that morning. He choked and let go of Cloud, staggering back as far as he could go in the tiny room.

The sudden movement made Tifa look at Zack instead of Cloud, and what she saw made the blood run cold in her veins. His eyes were _green_ , not the dark blue she'd expected; green, and _slitted_ like a cat's. She knew those eyes. They haunted _her_ nightmares, too.

Then Zack blinked and shook his head, and when he opened his eyes again they were back to normal, if somewhat pained-looking. Wondering if she'd imagined it, Tifa stared at him while he stared at Cloud.

"What's going on?" a frightened voice came from the doorway, and she turned to see Marlene and Denzel peeking into the room. It was Marlene who'd spoken, her voice high and uncertain. "Are you fighting? Did a monster come?"

Taking a deep breath, Zack forced his expression to relax and turned a sheepish grin on the two kids. "This, boys and girls, is why you don't roughhouse inside. We got a little carried away and Tifa was trying to break us up, that's all." Marlene eyed him, looking dubious, and Denzel gave him a hostile look. "Right, Cloud?" Zack added, hoping his friend was awake enough to hear him and understand what was going on.

Apparently he was, because he groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position. "Everything is fine," Cloud assured the two children, his voice hoarse. His head hurt, and he wasn't quite sure what the hell had just happened, but he knew enough to try to reassure the kids. "Denzel, Marlene, this is my friend Zack. I thought he was dead, but he's come back to torment me, apparently."

"Hey, somebody has to do it," Zack answered him, relaxing a bit for real when Cloud spoke coherently.

"Go on, you two," Tifa shooed them off, her heart in her throat and praying she didn't look as scared as she felt. "Go downstairs, I'll be down in a moment to get breakfast. Marlene, if you want to help you can start laying out the ingredients for me, but don't touch the stove."

It was such a normal, everyday thing to say; warning the little girl away from the hot stove seemed almost absurd, but at the same time it made Tifa feel better. Still looking doubtful, Marlene and Denzel turned to head back down the stairs.

The moment they were out of sight she stood and closed the door firmly. It would keep them from eavesdropping from the bottom of the stairs, and she trusted Cloud's senses - and Zack's too, come to that - to hear them if they crept closer. "All right," she said, hands on her hips as she looked back and forth between the two men. "What in the name of Odin just happened? Cloud, you've never attacked me when I woke you from a nightmare before this!"

"Is that what I did?" Cloud asked, shaken by the thought. Yes, Tifa could hold her own against him in a sparring match, but half asleep he wouldn't have been pulling his blows at _all_. He could have killed her, or damaged her beyond the limits of what even magic could repair.

"I tried to warn you," Zack said ruefully. "He flailed at me last night, too."

"I think I'm just... a little high strung right now," Cloud said softly. "Tifa, the last time you woke me out of a nightmare was before the geostigma got really bad. I've been sleeping worse than usual since then, so I'm probably more on edge now." He couldn't quite remember what he'd been dreaming about, but he remembered sensing mako and _his_ presence. Small wonder he'd lashed out.

"This is another good argument for him moving in with me," Zack pointed out with a sigh. When they both looked at him blankly, he tilted his head towards the door. "Unless they're a hell of a lot better behaved than most kids I've known, and never come in to wake him?"

Cloud blanched, and Tifa looked a little green. "They're almost never up before me, but it has happened," Cloud said slowly. "I guess we've just been lucky." If it had been Marlene or Denzel who'd woken him... well, judging from the damage, there wouldn't have been much left of them to try to heal. The thought was terrifying. He would never be able to live with himself if he hurt one of them that badly, even by accident.

"Right. I'm not sleeping here again until I stop being on such a hair trigger," he declared firmly. He sent Tifa an apologetic look, and she gave him a slightly fragile smile in return.

"Probably for the best," she agreed. Silently she scolded herself. She was _not_ going to think of this as 'letting him go', damn it. "Just make sure you get back here often enough, or we _will_ come hunting you down!"

Cloud raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, and Zack chuckled and reached out to ruffle his hair. Cloud ducked the motion and swept one of his feet out to knock Zack's legs out from under him, but the older man saw it coming and dodged easily. "None of that, this room is already ruined enough," Zack said, looking around and wincing. "We'll clean it up, I swear."

"I don't know why you look guilty, you're not even the one who did most of the damage," Tifa pointed out, somehow managing to find amusement in the situation. "You guys clean up, and by the time you're done I'll have breakfast ready. And then we'll all go see what we can do about making that church actually habitable."


	8. Chapter 8

"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Cloud asked as he stepped into the cleared area they'd squared off as a practice ring. On the other side, Zack was already warming up, doing a pattern-dance with the new broadsword they'd found for him.

"Nope!" Zack admitted cheerfully, bringing the sword around in a shining arc of metal until it stopped precisely in front of him, in the guard position. "But I'd rather find out that I'm not ready here with you, in controlled circumstances. As opposed to out there, being ambushed by a behemoth or something." He grinned at Cloud. "Besides, the only way to _get_ ready is to do it. Trust me on this, I am speaking from long experience."

At least a week of solitary practice had brought him through the worst of the process of getting himself back into fighting shape. The blisters on his hands had formed and broken, formed and broken again, and were finally starting to turn into the callous that he needed. The 'oh gods I can't move' muscle aches and strains were still there, but getting easier with every day he forced himself to work through them. Even the worst of the inevitable sunburn had passed, and his skin had lost the deathly pallor from years without seeing the sun. And thanks to all the mako his reflexes, speed, and strength were better than ever.

So now he was measuring himself against the only scale that really mattered: another opponent. Cloud could fight back in a way that no sparring dummy could ever replicate, and would force Zack to think as well as just act. Thinking was the most important part of any battle - even though during the battle itself, there was rarely time for actual thought.

"So? Bring it on," he invited Cloud, gesturing with his free hand. "Let's do this."

"We've got the hi-potions close to hand, right?" Cloud asked wryly, stepping into position across the ring. He had only the primary blade of First Tsurugi in his hand; it would be enough for now to face Zack one blade to one blade. The older man could worry about adapting himself to an opponent with multiple blades later. "I'm ready if you are."

They both lifted their swords in a brief salute, and Cloud felt a bit surreal as he did it. When was the last time he'd formally sparred with someone like this? He and Tifa worked out together often enough, but they never bothered with the formalities like the opening salute.

Actually, the last time he'd done it was probably the last time he'd practiced with Zack, back when he'd just been a scrawny trooper and the SOLDIER had been helping him learn how to use a sword. Cloud smiled to himself as they started circling each other warily. This battle was going to be a great deal more interesting than those had been.

Feinting to the right, Zack watched closely to see how Cloud reacted. The blond didn't move, his eyes fixed on Zack's shoulders, watching for the slight betraying twitch of muscle that most swordsmen had. If you knew what to look for, it could telegraph the intended move as clearly as a shout.

Unless, of course, you were good enough to hide those signals. Or fake them, in a sort of subtle feint. Which Zack was. He feinted again, left then right, then struck at the low centre. Cloud blocked low, then swung his sword around in a half arc to block the high strike Zack had shifted to. Grinning, Zack backed off again. This was going to be fun.

Seeing that his friend intended to wait until Cloud pressed the attack, the blond obliged him. He could have tried to outwait him, of course, but circling each other endlessly wouldn't do them any good. Cloud came in with a flurry of blows, short jabbing thrusts that fell rapidly enough to get through almost any defence.

Not Zack's though. The older man moved with the inherent speed and grace that only SOLDIERs could achieve. He blocked each thrust, though Cloud was pleased to see that blocking was all he could do. Zack didn't have a chance to parry or counterstrike at all.

Realizing Cloud had backed him almost out of the practice area, Zack grunted and stood his ground, refusing to give way under the onslaught. Cloud moved like lightning, and because he was using only one part of his blade he had a lighter sword. Plus Zack was still getting used to the weight and balance of this new broadsword, considerably different from his old buster sword. Worse, at the moment Cloud was in much better shape than Zack was, and his endurance would last far longer than the older man's. If Zack let this continue, Cloud was going to have more of an advantage with each passing moment.

So he broke the pattern, ducking under a strike instead of blocking and sweeping his blade around near the floor, aimed at Cloud's knees. The blond jumped over it, of course, but by then Zack had rolled past him back into the centre of the circle, removing the danger that Cloud might push him out of the ring.

Then it was Zack's turn to attack again, while Cloud's back was still turned to him. With a shout he whipped his blade up and around in a butterfly formation, aimed at Cloud's side. If it had hit, it would have cut a chunk out of the younger man's hip and continued on to hack into his upper arm, but as he'd expected Cloud managed to half-turn and block the shot.

Sweating, Cloud parried and backed away to the side, putting some room between him and Zack while he got turned to face the older man properly. That blow would have _really_ hurt if it had connected. He'd forgotten just how damn fast Zack could be - or maybe he'd never really seen it in the first place, considering the way the SOLDIER would have been holding back every other time they fought.

But Cloud was just as fast now, and he put every bit of his speed to use as he lunged in to swing under Zack's guard and bring his sword up quickly to bind Zack's blade. They locked at the hilt, forced in close to each other as each of them struggled for the upper hand. If one of them could get their blade over the other's, they could force it down and clear the way for their own attack. Muscles strained in both of their arms, teeth gritted as they grinned fiercely at each other and fought for supremacy.

Slowly, Cloud started to win out. Years in a mako tank had left Zack seriously out of condition despite the supernatural strength imparted by the mako, and he just couldn't match Cloud. In a few weeks, maybe, but not right now.

He wasn't down and out just yet, though. Taking a chance, knowing that if he miscalculated Cloud would be able to do some serious damage before Zack could get his sword up to block, he dropped his blade suddenly. The abrupt lack of resistance threw Cloud off balance, and he didn't recover fast enough to take advantage of the hole in Zack's defence. Leaning back, Zack brought one knee up to his chest and lashed out in a kick he'd learned on the fields of Wutai.

It landed solidly, Cloud not having expected footwork as well as swordwork, and the blond grunted as the air was forced out of his lungs. He threw himself backwards to help him absorb some of the force of the blow, but he could feel a warning twinge in his ribs. Not broken, not yet, but definitely hurt. He hit the ground hard, rolled into a crouch and launched himself into the air again before Zack could follow through with a lunge that would pin him to the ground.

That took the fight into the third dimension, as Cloud rose over Zack and the older man was forced to bring his sword up to defend from blows from above. Cloud hit the wall and kicked off again to maintain his aerial advantage, using the boost to change his direction as well and aim for the other wall. The practice ring was in one corner of the church, so he only had two walls to work with; if Zack could force him far enough out, he'd have to go back to ground.

Briefly Zack considered exactly that strategy, but he'd always been more of a 'fight fire with fire' type. He waited until Cloud was off the wall and committed to a direction, then jumped after him. They met in midair with a clash of blades, using each other as a springboard to push off of and hit the walls nearly at the same time.

In the split second as their momentum kept them hugging the walls, before they'd pushed off again, Zack met Cloud's fierce blue eyes, and grinned. Fun, indeed. This was nothing at all like fighting his timid, slightly inept young shadow. This was a match of equals. He hadn't had a fight like this since he'd last faced Sephiroth.

His off arm was aching, and he could feel blood running down it; Cloud had scored a hit at some point in that last exchange, and Zack hadn't noticed. Not bad enough to incapacitate a SOLDIER, but deep enough to hurt now that he'd noticed it. He'd have to remember to account for it; forgetting about an injury that wasn't felt thanks to adrenalin had spelled the end of more than one fight.

Then they'd launched off again, and Zack didn't have time to worry about it any more. The flash of silver from the blades as they struck was like a liquid flow in the air, they were moving so quickly now. A normal person would have had no hope of keeping up with them, but neither of them had the advantage at the moment.

This time Cloud brought his fists and feet into play as well, since Zack had set the precedent. They'd had a fair bit of time when AVALANCHE had been running around trying to find a way to get through the shield around the North Crater, pushing each other to improve at an almost inhuman rate. He'd spent quite a large chunk of that time training with Yuffie, learning some of the Wutaian tricks that even Tifa didn't know. He turned them on Zack, and the swordfight dissolved into a brawl.

The flurry of blows and kicks didn't leave them a chance to relaunch themselves, and they tumbled to the ground from nearly two stories up. Splitting apart at the last possible moment, they both tucked into a roll as they hit and bounced up to find themselves on opposite ends of the ring again.

"Ha! Not bad, kid," Zack declared as they circled warily once more, assessing their injuries and reformulating battle strategies to accommodate their new weaknesses. Ordinarily Zack would have been using this time to cast a Cure spell or two, or down a couple of hi-potions, but he needed to get used to fighting with limited resources and no magic. Besides, anything magic-related was tough to come by these days, and there was no point in wasting them on a friendly match.

"Not bad yourself, old man," Cloud teased him back, smiling as he lifted his off hand quickly to wipe the sweat out of his eyes. "Nothing like our old matches, is it?"

"Completely in a different universe," Zack replied, his voice wry but his eyes shining. "C'mon, is that all you've got?"

"You wish," Cloud retorted, and sprang in again. Zack met his blade high, deflecting it off to one side and using the momentum to redirect the broadsword at Cloud's side. Cloud spun and got First Tsurugi back into blocking position, parrying and riposting fast enough that Zack had to scramble to block him in turn.

 _This_ was what he'd always dreamed of, when he'd fantasized about making SOLDIER and finally being able to keep up with Zack. It felt literally like a dream come true, and Cloud wished it could go on forever. The burn of injuries and the sweat stinging in his eyes only drove home that it was _real_ , not a dream after all, and he welcomed the pain for that reason.

With a shout Cloud swept First Tsurugi up and around, trying to bind the broadsword again. Zack was drenched in sweat and his breathing was harsh; he was tiring much faster than Cloud, as they'd expected. That meant if Cloud could press the advantage, he would probably be able to win outright fairly quickly.

Zack still had a few tricks up his sleeve, though. He let Cloud lock their swords together again, but instead of fighting to get the upper hand he twisted his grip sharply, bearing down from an entirely unexpected direction. The broadsword broke free of the lock and corkscrewed around Cloud's blade, catching it and tearing it out of the blond's hands. With a shout of triumph Zack carried through on the motion and First Tsurugi went flying, clattering against the wall as Cloud's eyes went wide.

Cursing, Cloud dove after the blade, barely managing to avoid Zack's return thrust. If he could just get his hands on the sword again he was sure he could still win; Zack looked just about done in. If Zack beat him to it, though, or managed to attack him before he got there, then it was over. Cloud could fight unarmed, but this was supposed to be a sword match.

Sprinting after Cloud, Zack grinned as he realized he was going to make it first. The dive the blond had made didn't have quite enough momentum to carry him all the way to the wall where the sword was, and by the time he rolled to his feet Zack would already be there. The fight was all but over.

The first gunshot caught Zack so totally by surprise that he didn't even register the sound for what it was. Pain shot through his upper left shoulder, and he stumbled. The second shot he recognized as the sound of a bullet being fired, and he wrenched himself around just in time to block it with the blade of his sword. His left arm was useless, dangling at his side as the fire in his shoulder ate at him.

Two more shots clanged off the blade before he got a good look at the people firing on him, and he growled when he saw them. Black suits and guns in combination meant just one thing to someone from Shinra's Security Division, and Zack was pretty sure he recognized the redhead. "Turks," he snarled, and suddenly this went from being a practice match to a very real fight.

Cloud snatched up his sword and bounced to his feet, turning to find out why Zack hadn't beaten him to it. When his dive had fallen short, he'd assumed that would be the end of it, but to his surprise there was nothing stopping him from grabbing the fallen blade. When he turned and took in the situation, however, he understood. Groaning, he wondered if the Turks could have had worse timing if they'd tried.

Seeing that Zack was tensing in preparation to rush the two gunmen, Cloud swore and threw himself at the older man. "Stop!" he shouted, the command aimed at both sides of the fight. He managed to catch Zack around the shoulders just before the brunet took off, and halted the older man's momentum. Both Reno and Rude checked their next shots when Cloud suddenly got in the way of their target, though neither of the Turks lifted their guns from where they had a bead on Zack's heart.

"Stop! Zack, stay where you are, they're not enemies," Cloud ordered, his heart in his throat. This could have gone so, _so_ badly - still could, if he didn't get things straightened out quickly. "Reno, Rude! Put your guns up, damn it. He wasn't attacking me, this was a practice match."

"Cloud, those are _Turks_ ," Zack growled, not taking his eyes off the two men. He stood still under the younger man's grip, but his muscles were tense enough to quiver and he didn't drop his sword from the guard stance.

"I know," Cloud replied with a sigh. "Zack, it's okay."

" _Okay_?" Zack risked one incredulous glance at his friend. "They're _Turks_! I thought you said there was no more Shinra!" The Turks had been the bane of his existence on more than one occasion during that nightmare run from Nibelheim to Midgar. Troopers Zack could handle no problem, and even other SOLDIERs. But the Turks had a nasty habit of appearing in the places where he'd least expected them, and they'd nearly caught the two runaways several times.

"There isn't any more Shinra," Cloud asserted. "They're not Shinra, they're just Turks."

"Oi!" Reno took exception to that, frowning at Cloud. "Ain't no such thing as 'just Turks', yo. Some practice match - he damn near took a chunk out of your torso!"

"I knew he'd get out of the way in time," Zack replied, slowly accepting the rather mind-bending idea that the Turks had been firing on him because they'd thought they were coming to Cloud's rescue. Or something. "What the hell is going on, Cloud?"

"I'd kinda like to know that myself, yo," Reno grumbled, tilting the muzzle of his gun up towards the ceiling. Rude had already holstered his, though he'd left his suit jacket gaping open to give him easy access to the shoulder holster. "Don't I know you from somewhere?"

"We faced off a few times, couple of years ago," Zack told him, lowering his sword once the guns were no longer aimed at him. Breathing a quiet sigh of relief that the situation had been defused, Cloud released his grip on the older man's shoulders.

"Ahh!" Eyes widening with recognition, Reno pointed at Zack with his off hand. "You! You're supposed to be dead, yo! I saw the file and everything!"

"Somebody forgot to send me the memo, apparently," Zack said, recovering some of his good humour. "So, Cloud? How about that explanation?"

"They work for Rufus," Cloud explained, moving towards the hi-potions they'd set aside before starting the fight. Now that he'd stopped moving, the adrenalin was fading and his injuries were starting to protest vehemently. "We've... had an understanding a few times in the past."

Popping the cap off one of the little vials, he gave the two Turks a sour look as he downed the magic-laced liquid. Healing fire raced through his system, the familiar sensation almost comforting. He tossed another to Zack, who caught it and swallowed it just as quickly. "So what does Rufus want this time?" Cloud asked the Turks, his tone making it blatantly obvious that he had very little intention of going along with whatever it was.

"Hey, now," Reno affected a hurt look, gesturing with his gun in a way that made Zack a little nervous. "Here we are, taking time out of our time _off_ to come and pass along some information we thought you might want, and you treat us like this? Maybe you don't need this info so much after all, yo."

Somehow, Cloud sincerely doubted that the two men had come out of the pure goodness of their hearts, and the look he gave Reno said so louder than words. The redhead chuckled and didn't look in the least apologetic. "Yeah, okay, that's bullshit," Reno acknowledged. "But honestly, yo. We need to talk." His eyes were serious, and that made Cloud pause. When Reno got that serious, it was usually because the shit was about to hit the fan.

"All right," he said, walking towards them and gesturing for Zack to join him. "Let's hear it, then. After what Rufus pulled last time, it better be damn good if you think I'm going to listen to you."

Zack fell in at Cloud's back and to one side, sword braced on his shoulder but ready to bring it into play again at a moment's notice. He still felt more than a little twitchy, but he was willing to follow Cloud's lead in this. Now that he was thinking instead of reacting he did remember Cloud mentioning the 'help' the Turks had given to AVALANCHE on a couple of occasions, but that didn't make him any more trusting of them.

Shifting, Rude folded his arms over his chest. "There've been reports," he said, his voice a deep rumble. "Two from Kalm, and several from Midgar spread over the last week. Sephiroth has been sighted."

"Sephiroth?" Cloud felt like he'd taken a Bolt3 to the chest, and he stared at them for a long moment. It was as if the words didn't make sense, or perhaps as if his mind simply refused to process them. "You're sure it was him? It could have been one of the clones..."

"Pretty _damn_ sure, since one of the people who spotted him was Tseng," Reno shot back. "Two nights ago, up on the old Shinra tower remains, looking out over the city. Ain't no mistaking that outfit, yo, not to mention that sword. Unless somebody's playing dress-up, who has the face and eyes too, it was him."

"Sephiroth? Here?" Zack said, eyes wide. "Shit. _Again_?"

"I'll never be free of him," Cloud muttered, closing his eyes and pressing the heel of one hand to his eye as a headache spiked through his skull. "I was _sure_ he was gone, this time. There isn't any of Jenova left, how could he come back again?" Opening his eyes, he speared the two Turks with a glare. "There _isn't_ any more, right? I swear, if I find out Rufus is hiding another piece of her somewhere..."

"No more pieces," Reno assured him hastily, perhaps seeing and believing the threat of imminent mayhem in Cloud's eyes. "Swear to Bahamut, if any more are out there we ain't got 'em."

"What's he been up to?" Zack asked urgently. "You said he was watching the city, but surely there's more to it than that."

"Nope, just reports of people sighting him all over the place," Reno told him, shaking his head. "Left, right and centre, yo. Always from a distance, and always just watching."

"What's he _doing_?" Cloud frowned, talking mostly to himself. It wasn't like Sephiroth to just stand around doing nothing. Not when he could come and taunt Cloud into another fight, just to torment him.

"Recon, maybe?" Zack suggested. "You said he was seen in Kalm. When?"

"Just over a week ago," Rude replied. "Nine days."

"Shit, that's the day we were in Kalm," Zack realized, eyes widening. "You think it's connected?"

"I think we'd be stupid to assume it wasn't," Cloud snorted. "Gods." Eyeing the Turks, he demanded, "Why should I believe you? Even if I do believe you, why should I think you're telling me the whole truth? You don't exactly have a good track record here. For that matter, why are you telling me this at all?"

"Because you're the only one who's ever beaten him, yo," Reno shrugged. "Tseng's worried he'll come for Rufus. He _is_ the one responsible for punching the hole in the shield around the crater, so you lot could get in there and stop him," he pointed out. "Our job is protecting Rufus. Yours is protecting the planet. That crazy bastard is a threat to both, right? So we're on the same side, here. Relatively speaking."

Rude was eyeing Zack speculatively, and the former SOLDIER gave the Turk an unfriendly expression in return. "We'll look into it," Zack said. "And I'm sure you'll come straight to us the moment you get any new info, right?"

"We aren't coming to _you_ at all," Reno said. "We're coming to _him_ ," he jerked his thumb at Cloud. "You just happen to be here."

Well, that was a new one, Zack thought with some bemusement. Cloud was the one people were asking for help, while Zack 'just happened to be there'.

"Zack's as involved in it as I am," Cloud informed them shortly. "If we're going to face Sephiroth again, we'll do it together. And this time maybe we'll actually _kill_ the bastard."

"Hey, between you and me, we can do anything kid," Zack smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. "We'll get him, no problem. I've got a few questions to ask him, anyway."

"Yeah, I bet," Cloud acknowledged, his mouth quirking in a wry little smile despite himself. Not that Sephiroth would answer the questions; the man was a master of maddening misdirection.

"We'll take care of it," he told the Turks, echoing Zack's previous statement. "Tell Rufus to stay the hell out of our way, and if I find out he's hiding vital information from me again there _will_ be hell to pay."

"Yeah, yeah, sure thing yo," Reno agreed with a lazy wave of his hand and an insincere smile. "We'll keep you in the loop. Hey, at least you know it's in our best interests for you to win, right?"

"Right," Cloud rolled his eyes. "Now get the hell out of my church."

Watching the two men go, Zack chewed his lower lip. "You think it's really him?" he asked Cloud once he was sure they were out of earshot.

Moving to stand by the lake, Cloud spiked the blade of First Tsurugi into the earth and leaned on it. Closing his eyes, he listened to the sound of the water lapping gently against the sides of the pool. It was a soothing sound, and he needed all the soothing he could get at that moment.

"If it's not actually him, it will be shortly," he answered, feeling far more weary than someone who hadn't even seen a quarter century of life had any right to be. Would this battle between them never end? The headache that had started with Reno's announcement was getting stronger, pounding between his temples until he felt sick. Or maybe that was just a reaction to the thought of once again facing the man who was his greatest nemesis. Why couldn't Sephiroth just stay dead like a normal person?

"Hey." Concerned at the pained, pinched look on Cloud's face, Zack rested a hand on the younger man's shoulder. "You're not in this alone, remember? You never have been, but now you're _really_ not. We'll face him together, you and me." He smiled. "He won't know what hit him."

"Yeah." Feeling a little better at the reminder, Cloud nodded and opened his eyes to smile back at his friend. "Yeah, you're right." Having Zack by his side would make all the difference in the world.


	9. Chapter 9

The moment they walked into the bar, Tifa knew there was trouble. It wasn't exactly hard to tell; the pained look on Cloud's face matched the unusually grim one on Zack's, and neither was a sign of good things to come. She knew Cloud well enough to be able to read the subtle nuances of his various brooding and dark expressions, and in the week and a half since Zack had reappeared she'd come to learn that _any_ sort of expression on him other than a smile was unusual.

"Don't tell me," she sighed, wiping her hands on a towel and turning off the faucet where she'd been washing dishes. "Sephiroth has found a way to come back despite the lack of Jenova bits, and we need to go save the world. _Again_."

She'd been attempting to inject some levity into the conversation and remind them that it couldn't be _that_ bad, but the way Cloud's eyes went wide and startled was _not_ reassuring. "How did you... did the Turks come here first?" he demanded, staring at her like she'd grown a second head.

That earned him an elbow in the ribs from Zack, and when he glared at his friend the older man rolled his eyes. "She was _kidding_ , Cloud," Zack pointed out.

"Oh." Sheepish, Cloud realized that if Tifa _had_ already known the truth, she would have headed straight for them to make sure they knew as well. Not stood around doing dishes. "Right."

Staring from one to the other, Tifa tried to find some other explanation for Cloud's outburst and couldn't. "You're not serious," she said flatly. "He's _back_?"

"Apparently." Cloud slung himself onto one of the bar stools. Automatically she reached beneath the bar and grabbed him a beer; he took it from her and then looked at it like he couldn't remember what to do with it.

"He's been sighted in several places around Midgar over the last week or so," Zack elaborated, seating himself next to Cloud and accepting the beer she offered him. "As well as in Kalm the same night Cloud and I were there." He flicked the cap off with his thumb and drank about half of it in one long gulp, like he was dying of thirst; now that she was looking more closely she could see signs of hastily cleaned up sweat and blood on both of them.

"Have you fought him?" she asked, startled. Surely even with the two of them, it wouldn't have been as easy as all that. And Zack had only said he'd been sighted, not that they'd seen him. "Why do you both look like you've just come out of a battle?"

"I told you she'd notice even if we cleaned up," Cloud muttered with a faint smile, and twisted the cap off his beer as well. He copied Zack and went one further, drinking as if he had every intention of finishing it off without coming up for air.

"Doesn't mean the effort was wasted," Zack countered, swatting the back of the blond's head and nearly making him choke on his drink. "I doubt she'd have appreciated us showing up covered in blood. We were sparring," he explained to Tifa, who was waiting with one eyebrow raised to hear the explanation. "And then the Turks got involved. But that's not important."

"You try coming in here covered in blood and I'll hose you both off in the doorway," she threatened them, grabbing another couple of beers. On second thought she added a third for herself, then moved to lock the door and close the shades to indicate the bar wasn't going to open any time soon. "So. He's out there again. Somehow, I don't find myself terribly shocked."

"You and me both," Cloud sighed, leaning one elbow on the bar and rubbing at his forehead as if that would help ease the headache. "I don't understand it, though. Jenova's _gone_. If there had been any more pieces of her out there, Kadaj and the others wouldn't have been so desperate to get the one Rufus had. There's nothing left for him to use to come back, damn it."

"Well, that's not entirely true," Zack said speculatively, picking up his second beer and toying with it. "That there's not anything at all left of Jenova, I mean."

"What do you mean?" Tifa asked, pulling up a stool behind the bar so she could sit facing them. She took her bottle and opened it, though something told her this conversation might end up requiring something stronger than just beer. "The last piece was destroyed when Kadaj absorbed it to become Sephiroth. Cloud's right, if there were any more chunks out there, things would have gone differently."

"No pieces, sure, but that doesn't mean she's gone entirely," Zack replied. "For one thing, every ex-SOLDIER in existence has Jenova cells in his system. Probably not enough to make them vulnerable, even the 1st Class, but still. There were enough of us around that collectively, it's a significant amount. And Hojo was trying to turn us all into good little Sephiroth clones, right? That means he would've had to inject us with a _lot_ of Jenova cells, not just the piddling amount SOLDIERs get. So anyone who survived Nibelheim and was taken to the labs is a potential carrier for Sephiroth. He must've managed to activate one of them somehow."

"The black clones?" Tifa asked, surprised. She hadn't thought about it in exactly that way, but it made sense that they'd all be carrying lots of Jenova cells. If there were any left. "But they were all destroyed in the North Crater," she pointed out. "There aren't any more."

"You sure about that?" Zack retorted, raising an eyebrow at her. "Really damn sure? Did you _count_? All it would take is one who didn't make it to the crater in time to join the Reunion. If one had been trapped somewhere, or hell, was being held for his own good in a hospital or something, then he'd still be alive."

"Zack's right," Cloud realized, groaning. "The way they were all walking around like zombies, it wouldn't surprise me if some well-meaning person did hospitalize one or more of them."

"And having done so, they wouldn't let them just wander off because they got it into their heads to go north," Zack agreed. "All they'd have to do would be strap them down or lock them in, and you've got at least one clone that didn't die summoning Meteor."

"Great." Tifa threw her hands into the air. "So _somewhere_ out there we've got one or more remaining clones, and Sephiroth can take them over at will? Why'd he wait until now?"

"Maybe he wasn't strong enough before this," Cloud suggested. "We damaged him pretty badly in the last battle in the crater, and again when I fought him just recently. From the way Reno described it, I think he's not completely in control, either; the fact that he hasn't _done_ anything yet makes more sense if it's because he's still fighting to get total control over the body."

"So we need to find the clone before he gets strong enough to take over completely, and kill it," Tifa concluded. "If we can do that before he..."

"Whoa, wait a minute, hold on," Zack interjected, frowning. "We can't just kill them out of hand. _They_ haven't done anything wrong." When Tifa and Cloud both gave him blank looks, he made a frustrated noise and struggled to find the right words to explain something that should have been obvious. "Whoever this guy is, he was just some poor bastard who happened to be in Nibelheim at the wrong time, right? He hasn't done anything wrong."

"We can't take the chance that Sephiroth could get control," Cloud told him, shaking his head. "Better to end it quickly without a fight. Besides, whoever they might once have been, they aren't anyone now. The black clones are just... puppets. Empty shells."

"Yeah, and there but for the grace of the Ancients go you and I," Zack reminded him. "It's only luck and sheer stubbornness that kept us from being two more clones in the line, remember?"

"I remember. Better than you do," Cloud shot back, hunching his shoulders. He would never forget the way it had felt when Sephiroth had invaded his mind, taking him over and forcing him to obey the other man's will instead of his own. He'd been closer to becoming a clone than Zack had been, after all. "But that doesn't mean we should just sit back and let Sephiroth do whatever he wants, Zack! Wouldn't it be smarter to nip this in the bud?"

"Yeah, but..." Shaking his head, Zack's frown turned into a scowl. "Look. I had to kill enough innocent people when I was working for Shinra. I'm not going to start doing it again now! Even if we find one of the clones, there's no guarantee it's the right one! They're still _people_ , not things, and we can't just start slaughtering them indiscriminately!"

"You make it sound like we're going to go out and start shooting babies or something," Tifa protested, uncomfortable. But she couldn't entirely argue with Zack's logic. She'd gotten by thinking of the black clones like... animals, not people. Certainly not people she'd once lived with, seen every day and smiled at or spoken to on a regular basis. Nibelheim had been her _home_ , after all. And it was a small enough town that she'd known everyone in it. "Why don't we find the clone first, and then decide what to do? Just finding them will be difficult enough."

"By the time we do, it may be a moot point," Cloud muttered sourly. "Sephiroth may have taken over completely by then. From what Rude and Reno said, he's been appearing more frequently as time goes by."

"Which also argues for the carrier being someone with at least some mind of his own left," Zack insisted, unwilling to just drop it until he was sure the other two weren't planning to run the poor bastard through at the first opportunity. Granted, Zack couldn't really offer a better plan as a substitute, but he couldn't shake the feeling that what they were talking about would be _wrong_. "If he's fighting back well enough that Sephiroth is only appearing sometimes, even if it's becoming more frequent, then maybe we can help him fight harder."

"All right, all right!" Tifa gave in, shaking her head. "We won't just kill them, unless there's no other choice. The question is, how do we find them? I mean, we can let people know that we're looking for anyone who fits the description of a black clone, and they ought to stand out in a crowd. But if you're right and the carrier still has some of his own mind, it might not be that easy."

"Also, the guy is obviously moving around," Zack sighed. "If he was in Kalm at the same time we were, then... I wonder. Was he following us, or drawn there because of us? And is it me or Cloud that's attracting him? Hell, for that matter, it might be something else that was in the labs with me, and it got out when Cloud and I were distracted by finding clothes for me and getting the data he was after. That would certainly explain the timing of it."

"Do you suppose we could use the two of you as bait, somehow?" Tifa suggested. "If he's following you, or attracted to you, then if you went somewhere else where there weren't a lot of people it'd probably be easier to catch him."

"Or we could end up leaving Edge open to attack since we wouldn't be here to stop him, which may be what he's really waiting for," Zack countered, frowning. "It's only a theory that he's appearing sporadically because he doesn't have full control yet, after all. Cloud? What do you think?"

Cloud hadn't been following the conversation at all. When Zack had pointed out that the available information indicated the person carrying Sephiroth within them still had a mind of their own left, he'd been struck by a thought so horrible he could barely stand to contemplate it. Yet he didn't have much of a choice, because not to think about it could bring disaster down on all of them.

As Zack himself had said, he and Cloud were carriers of Jenova cells. Failed clones they might have been, but not for lack of trying on Hojo's part. And Zack had been in Hojo's hands longer than Cloud; the gods alone knew what else might have been done to him after he'd been recaptured.

 _Zack_ had been locked away, unable to follow the call to Reunion that the rest of the clones had answered. He'd admitted to Cloud that he had very little memory of the extra years he'd spent in the lab; was that because he'd been in a comatose state like Cloud had been, or had he descended into the true mindlessness of the other clones? Sephiroth had first appeared the night Cloud had released Zack from the labs. Surely that couldn't be a coincidence.

And if there was anyone who was stubborn enough to repeatedly fight off Sephiroth's control, it was Zack. Cloud couldn't imagine anyone else being able to do it more than a few times before the bastard would have taken over completely; he of all people knew just how hard it was to fight against Sephiroth's power.

Did Zack _know_? How could he not, if he was having to fight off Sephiroth every time he turned around? But surely he'd have said _something_. Unless his insistence that they think twice before killing whoever was carrying Sephiroth was because he was nervous they would just kill him out of hand if they found out the truth?

No. Cloud couldn't even consider that Zack would hide something like that. If it _was_ Zack, then his friend somehow wasn't aware of it. But that only made it that much more complicated to find out the truth.

"Cloud?" Tifa prompted when the blond didn't answer Zack's question after several long moments. Cloud looked... stunned, like someone had just smacked him with a Confuse spell. He was staring down at his beer bottle, but somehow she didn't think he was actually seeing it. "Hey, are you okay?" she asked, concerned. Reaching out, she put one hand over his, and that seemed to jolt him back to reality.

"What? Yeah, I'm fine," he answered automatically, trying to get his spinning thoughts to settle into some kind of order. He couldn't tell them his theory, not yet. He could still be wrong, after all. He _had_ to be wrong. Because the alternative - that he would have to face and kill _Zack_ in order to destroy Sephiroth this time - was simply not acceptable. "I just... can't get rid of this damn headache. It's hard to think," he said, groping for an excuse for his inattention.

"Can't blame you," Zack said wryly, patting his friend on the shoulder. The pinched look on Cloud's face was worse than ever, and he could only imagine how much pain the other man had to be in for it to be showing that clearly in his expression. Zack knew better than anyone how much pain a SOLDIER could take and brush off. Small wonder Cloud was suffering, though. This was literally a nightmare come true for him. At least for Zack, this was only the first time he'd had to face his one-time friend and hero since that night Sephiroth had gone insane.

"We need to find out exactly when and where he was sighted each time," Cloud said gruffly, trying to get their attention off him before they started asking questions he couldn't answer easily. "If we can find a pattern, we may be able to at least narrow the search area. Or if we're lucky, we might be able to anticipate where he'll show up next, and either confront him or just follow him to see where he goes."

And maybe, just maybe, they'd find out that Sephiroth had been sighted at times when Cloud and Zack had been together, and therefore it couldn't possibly be Zack.

"Right," Zack agreed, latching onto the suggestion as something constructive for them to do. "I'll bet the Turks have that information. We can shake it out of them one way or another." Drumming his fingers on the bar, he thought for a moment. "We also need to look over the information we took from Hojo," he declared. "There could be something in there that would tell us how Sephiroth is doing this. Or even how to stop it from happening, though it doesn't seem like _stopping_ him was any part of Hojo's plans."

"Oh!" Tifa jumped, and smacked herself in the forehead in exasperation. "I'm an idiot. Just a second." While the two men stared at her in confusion, she slipped off the stool and pushed through the door into the rest of the house. She grabbed the large envelope that had arrived just that morning, and returned brandishing the disks that had been inside. "Reeve sent these over earlier today. I was going to come and find you later if you hadn't dropped by, but your news drove it out of my head completely."

"He cracked them already?" Cloud exclaimed in delight, taking them from her and scanning the brief note that accompanied them. As Zack had predicted the files had been encrypted, and he'd sent them off to Reeve with a request for help. From the sound of the letter it hadn't been easy, but Reeve had apparently understood the potential urgency of the situation. "Figures. That's Reeve for you. I don't think there's anything he can't do with a piece of electronic equipment. Let's take them upstairs to the computer in the office."

From the thundering of their feet as they all hurried up the stairs, Zack thought with a hint of amusement, you'd think they were five and playing tag or something. Well, this was sort of like the deadly adult version of hide-and-seek, so maybe the comparison wasn't all that far off the mark.

The office was small, but Tifa and Zack crowded close behind Cloud as the blond slid into the desk chair and booted up the computer. The moment it finished loading he pushed the first disk into the slot and bought up the directory.

File name after file name scrolled by on the screen. Most of it was just strings of letters and numbers - project codes and experiment numbers, Zack supposed. "Try something that starts with 'J'," he suggested. "The Jenova project seems the obvious place to start."

"Right," Cloud agreed, and clicked on the first 'J' file he saw. It opened to show pages of data, graphs and charts, and paragraphs of notes and conclusions. He scanned the writing and realized with a sinking heart that he had _no_ clue what was being said. "I don't even know half of these _words_ ," he declared, frustrated. "Do either of you know what the hell this says?"

"Don't look at me," Zack grimaced. "I ran away from home to join the army same as you did, remember? I don't have much formal schooling. Tifa?"

"Are you kidding me?" Tifa gave them both a disbelieving expression when they turned to look at her. "I might've had more education than the two of you, but we didn't cover this kind of thing! This is specialized science."

Cloud tried opening a few more files, not just 'J' files, but none of them made any more sense than the first had. "Well, I think we can safely say that you're right that the 'J' files are for the Jenova project, since they're almost the only ones that contain that word," he finally concluded after running a search, leaning back in the chair and rubbing at his eyes. "It also comes up in the 'G' files for Genesis, but Odin alone knows what that is. 'C' is for Chaos - we should give those to Vincent," he added in an aside to Tifa. "He probably won't be able to make any more sense of them than we can, but he may want to have them just in case."

"I'll see if Cid can get hold of him, or get them to him somehow," Tifa agreed. "And you never know. Maybe he picked up some of the lingo along the way."

"We need someone who can speak science-ese," Zack said, shaking his head. "Obviously it's not any of us. Any contacts I might've had are probably dead or somewhere I can't find them, after all this time. Who do you know that understands geek?"

"Reeve?" Tifa suggested tentatively. "He did crack the files for us..."

"Reeve is an engineer, not a bio-scientist," Cloud argued. "Give him a computer program with a bug in it or an engineering blueprint with a flaw and he'll find it in three seconds flat, but this is way outside his area of specialization. Even he can't be a genius at everything."

Something clicked in Zack's head, and he blinked at them. "Wait a minute. Reeve, he's the one who was Shinra's mole through Cait Sith, right?" he asked Cloud, who nodded. "Are we talking about Reeve _Tuesti_? The guy who designed _Midgar_?" When Cloud nodded again, Zack whistled. "Geez. I know you said he was high up in Shinra, but I didn't realize you were talking board of directors kind of 'high'. Even if he can't understand it, he might know someone who can translate it to layman's terms for us."

"Or Cid might," Tifa put in. "Most of the people in Rocket Town were scientists and engineers left behind when the space program fell through. He's probably still got contacts in that area."

"If worse comes to worst, we can always try coercing Rufus," Cloud decided. "I bet he's still got contacts all over the place. But we'll try Reeve and Cid first; I don't trust Rufus to give us all the information. Or even the _right_ information, if it suited him better for us to be working in the wrong direction."

"I'd sooner trust a sea worm than a Shinra," Zack agreed grimly. "We should probably get everything translated, just in case; you never know what's going to be relevant. There's a lot of stuff on there that I've never heard of."

"I _think_ some of it is about the development of the monsters, and the effect the reactors have on the life in the areas around them," Cloud said hesitantly, clicking through more of the files. "A bunch of this is definitely about the SOLDIER program, and it looks like there's some files on Sephiroth specifically as a subset of the Jenova project. We'll want that information first. If there's anything we can use directly against Sephiroth, some kind of weakness, it'll be there..."

He trailed off, rubbing at his temple again and shaking his head as his headache suddenly intensified. "Cloud?" Tifa rested a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I just... ah, gods," he gasped as the dull throb of the headache abruptly became blinding pain stabbing through his skull. Behind him Zack choked and doubled over as the pain hit him as well, and both men clutched at their heads.

"Cloud? Zack?" Tifa took a step back, her eyes wide, not sure what was happening. "What is it, what's going on?"

"Sweet Shiva, that hurts," Zack groaned, leaning his weight against the desk as he struggled against a sense of _pressure_ , like something was pushing at his skull from the inside and trying to make it burst. "What in Odin's name..."

"Jenova," Cloud gritted out between clenched teeth. "It's Sephiroth, exerting his power, and it resonates in us because of Jenova's influence." He looked up, and Tifa's heart beat faster when she realized that this time _his_ eyes had gone green and slitted like a cat's.

And so had Zack's, she saw when the older man lifted his head as well. Just as they had the last time, glowing faintly with green mako and looking even more disturbing in the setting of a normally friendly face. Now she wondered if Cloud's eyes had changed as well last time, too... he'd still been face-down on the floor, she hadn't been able to see him at the time.

As suddenly as the pain had started, it was gone. Zack half-collapsed to sit on the desk, panting. "Okay, that's at least the second time that's happened," he said carefully, finding it took a real effort to string words together coherently. He felt like he'd just been through some kind of mental battle, and was just as battered as he would be after a real fight. Too bad there wasn't such a thing as a mental hi-potion. "I think maybe it's happening sometimes when I sleep, too - that would explain some of the weirder nightmares I've been having."

"Yeah, me too," Cloud agreed, trying to keep his breathing slow and steady as he rubbed at his eyes. His headache was gone now, but it felt like it _should_ be there, so he kept anticipating pain that wasn't happening any more. "It must be happening at moments when he's trying to exert his influence."

Did that mean Zack wasn't the carrier after all? Or just that Sephiroth was getting bolder, trying to push through even when Zack was around others? Hell, for that matter, it might have been a reaction to Cloud's realization that they might find something to help them stop the bastard in the files on Sephiroth. The timing was a little suspicious. And that argued for it being Zack, because how else would Sephiroth have been aware of what they were discussing?

"He's getting more powerful," Cloud said with weary certainty. That much, at least, he could be sure of. "If we're going to have any hope of stopping him before he takes control completely, we need to move fast."

"I'll get the disks to Cid, and ask Reeve to look into it as well," Tifa replied, trying not to be too shaken by what she'd just seen. Their eyes were back to normal; Cloud's a clear blue like the summer sky, and Zack's a deep indigo. The shining haze of mako was still there, but not green like it had been a moment before. Even so, she couldn't shake the distinctly unnerving sensation that Sephiroth had been looking at her out of their eyes for just a moment - and the idea that it could happen again without warning was enough to creep her out completely.

"I guess that's all we can do for now," Zack said, sighing as he looked from Tifa's spooked expression to Cloud's haunted one. "Then we wait for answers. And in the meantime, try to get on with our lives, because letting him disrupt everything is just another kind of victory." Now, if only it wasn't easier said than done.


	10. Chapter 10

Staring at the list of locations and times, Cloud ran the numbers through his head yet again and came up with the same conclusion he'd reached the first four times he'd done it. Every single time Sephiroth had been sighted, it had been when Cloud was either asleep or out of Zack's presence for some other reason. Instead of the hoped-for proof that Zack couldn't possibly be the carrier, he'd gotten exactly the opposite.

Of course, the list could be incomplete. Ordinarily he wouldn't have trusted information passed on by the Turks any further than he could throw it, but in this case he was willing to believe he knew everything they did. Tifa had interrupted the argument between Zack and Cloud over how to go about forcing the information out of the Turks by pointing out that they could try just _asking_.

She'd then proceeded to sweet-talk it out of Rude, and had gotten his assurance that it was everything they had. Oddly, Cloud believed him. Rude was less inclined to fuck with people just for the sake of it than Reno was, and all the signs indicated that he still had that crush on Tifa.

So if he could safely assume the list was complete... groaning, Cloud buried his face in his hands and slumped wearily over the table. With nine sightings of the bastard, it seemed beyond belief that the timing of each appearance could be a coincidence. It had to be Zack.

The real question was, what was he going to do about it? Cloud could probably arrange things so he and Zack didn't ever separate, but he needed to sleep sometimes. He couldn't exactly lock Zack up at night or drug him senseless. And even if Zack hadn't gotten them to promise not to kill the carrier out of hand, there was no way Cloud could even contemplate that solution. Not with _Zack_.

Standing, he gathered the papers into an untidy pile and shoved them under some other folders from his courier business. Out of sight didn't come close to out of mind in this case, but at least he wouldn't have them glaring up at him from the table like a silent accusation.

He still wasn't quite sure whether he should confide his suspicions to Zack or not. What if the older man didn't believe him? Worse, what if he _did_ , and decided to do something stupidly noble like sacrifice himself for the good of the rest of the world? That was just the sort of thing Cloud could imagine him doing, the selfless idiot. This was after all the same guy who had dragged his comatose friend all over the world for a _year_ before throwing himself in the way of a sniper bullet to protect the same - still comatose! - friend.

If there was one thing Cloud was certain of, it was that he couldn't bear to lose Zack again. Especially not like that. It would break him, completely and utterly. Even _thinking_ about having to face Sephiroth in a battle knowing that to kill him would be to kill Zack was enough to make him shake with fear. He couldn't do it - and that meant Sephiroth was going to win this time.

"There has to be another way," he said fiercely, pacing back and forth the length of their tiny main room. The corner of the church they'd converted into living space wasn't very large; just big enough for two small bedrooms, a rudimentary kitchen and bathroom, and this main room with a table and two chairs. They didn't spend much time in it anyway, so that was all they needed. It made for cramped pacing space, though.

All right. He couldn't kill Zack, and he couldn't let anyone else kill him either, including Zack himself. That meant he needed to find a way to suppress Sephiroth so he couldn't take control. The idea that the bastard was forcing his way through Zack's iron will was almost incomprehensible in the first place, Cloud couldn't imagine what they could do to boost Zack's chances of fighting him off.

The answer might lie in Hojo's files, but they'd made no progress there yet. Both Reeve and Cid had said they'd do what they could, but had made no promises. Now Cloud regretted chasing off the techs that had been sealed away in the lab with Zack; they would almost certainly have been able to interpret the information.

He couldn't chance waiting for that information and hoping Zack wouldn't succumb completely in the meantime. There had to be _something_ else he could do!

Pausing in front of one of the stained glass windows in the outside wall, he stared blankly out over the ruined city. What other possible sources of information were there? Rufus, of course, but Cloud still didn't trust anything from him. What would Rufus' sources be? Maybe Cloud could go to them directly. Where had the Turks gotten their information before this?

Realization struck, and Cloud cursed himself for a fool even as he spun on his heel and raced for his room to pack. There was one other obvious potential source of information, and he couldn't believe it hadn't occurred to him to look there until now.

"Honey, I'm home!" Zack called as he shoved his way through the door with his hip, carrying heavy sacks in both arms. The joke still never failed to amuse him, and he laughed as he dumped the sacks onto the table in the main room. He'd gone out to exchange some of the more valuable monster bits Cloud had brought in for gil and supplies. They were still working on putting together a bike for him, so for the moment Cloud was the one making short delivery runs to bring in some cash while Zack did the mundane stuff like household chores. It was a fair enough exchange, but it did make him feel a bit like a housewife, which also amused him to no end.

A shuffling noise from Cloud's room alerted him to the blond's location, and a moment later the door opened to reveal the younger man with his full saddlebags slung over his shoulder. "Did you get a job?" Zack asked in surprise. To his experienced eye it looked like Cloud was packing for a trip longer than just overnight, which was the longest he'd been gone since he'd found Zack. For one thing, he was wearing his sword _and_ armour.

Granted, the longer trips were the ones that paid best, but by mutual unspoken agreement Cloud had been turning those down for now. They still didn't like being separated, and anyway with the threat of Sephiroth looming over them it seemed foolish for Cloud to be out of reach for long.

"No." Cloud shook his head and hefted the saddlebags a little higher, not quite able to meet Zack's eyes. He was too afraid Zack would see the truth in his expression... and, if he was being honest with himself, he was terrified of seeing some sign of Sephiroth in Zack's eyes. "I realized we were overlooking a source of information - the North Crater. That's where the last bit of Jenova was found; maybe there _is_ more there somewhere. It's also where Kadaj and the others came from, so if we're facing another situation like them it probably would have originated in the same place. There might be some clues."

"Oh, geez." Zack felt like an idiot for not thinking of that himself. "Right, give me two minutes and I'll be packed," he declared. Screw the groceries, they could rot on the table. This was more important. He'd have to ride double behind Cloud, but that shouldn't be a problem.

"You're not coming," Cloud told him flatly, stopping Zack in his tracks. When the older man gave him a questioning look, Cloud forced his face to stay blank as he met Zack's gaze. "If we both leave, then the city is unprotected. You said it yourself when Tifa suggested using us as bait; that might be what he's waiting for." And he didn't want Zack with him, in case there _was_ something there. If he found a bit of Jenova and Zack was nearby, that might be enough to let Sephiroth break through. And that was the one thing Cloud most wanted to avoid, because then he would have no choice but to fight or die.

"That's what phones are for," Zack argued, frowning. "Tifa can call us if something happens. Leaving to go somewhere remote and play bait is one thing, but this is important. And I'm not letting you go by yourself!"

"I'm not going to argue about it with you," Cloud said. Zack smiled, taking that for agreement, but Cloud cut him off before he could say anything. "It's not open for discussion. You're not coming."

Blinking, Zack opened his mouth, but had to bite down on what he'd been about to say. His automatic response had been something along the lines of 'don't make me turn it into an order', but the fact was that he had no right to be giving Cloud orders any more. They were partners and friends, not superior and subordinate.

Of course, Cloud didn't have any right to be giving _him_ orders, either. "How are you planning to enforce that, exactly?" Zack asked. His voice was mild, but there was a warning glint in his eyes. He might be easy-going by nature, but he could be damned stubborn when he felt like it.

"What are you going to do, follow me on foot?" Cloud retorted. "Unless you've got an airship or a gold chocobo hidden away somewhere that I don't know about, it would take you days to get there."

"What makes you think I'm going to let you leave the church?" Zack countered. "You think you can get past me?" Cloud won about four out of five of their practice bouts, but if they were fighting for real Zack was pretty sure he could at least hurt the younger man badly enough to keep him here. He couldn't believe he was even thinking about something like that, but he was _not_ letting Cloud walk out of here without him.

"Don't turn this into a fight, Zack. You won't like the results," Cloud warned, his hand going automatically to the hilt of First Tsurugi, hanging in its accustomed place at his hip. Seeing that, Zack's hand went for his hilt as well, over his shoulder, and suddenly the tension level in the room skyrocketed.

"Tifa was right," Zack growled, shaking his head. "You just refuse to accept that you're not in this alone, don't you? You try to take everything on yourself. Well, not this time, kid. You said it yourself, to the Turks. For better or worse, you're stuck with me for the duration. I'm _not_ letting you saunter off and leave me behind! What if something happens up there, and you need backup? What if Sephiroth shows up?"

That was, in fact, exactly what Cloud was afraid of, and why he didn't want Zack along. But he couldn't explain his reasoning without also telling Zack his theory. Making a frustrated noise, he tightened his hand on the hilt until he could feel the imprint of the leather wrapping even through the callus on his palm. "You're not coming!" he asserted, his eyes flashing.

"And you're not going alone, so apparently neither of us is going anywhere," Zack replied, taking a step closer. "So help me kid, I _will_ tackle you and sit on you until you see sense, if you make me."

"Damn it, Zack! I am not a kid who needs protecting any more!" Cloud exclaimed, becoming genuinely angry. Did Zack _still_ see him that way? Even though Cloud could now consistently beat him in their practice matches? What was it going to take to get the former SOLDIER to recognize that Cloud was his equal? "I don't need a babysitter. I did just fine on my own for three years without you," he added bitingly.

That stung, and Zack winced. "You weren't _on_ you own," he pointed out relentlessly. He was not going to give in on this issue. "You had Aerith and Tifa and the others. And now you have me. That's the way it works when you're part of a team, Cloud."

Taking a deep breath, Cloud fixed his gaze unwaveringly on his friend's. "Get out of my way, Zack," he said, his voice tight. "Last warning. Don't make me fight you."

"You're the one turning it into a fight," Zack snapped back. "You either take me with you, or take me down. That's the only way I'm moving."

"Oh yeah?" That was a challenge Cloud couldn't ignore. He slipped the first blade of his sword from the sheath and took an aggressive stance. "Bring it on, SOLDIER boy. We'll see who takes who down." He was confident in his own ability to win, though the thought of fighting with Zack for real made him feel sick. Wasn't this exactly what he'd been trying to avoid?

"You asked for it," Zack growled, and unsheathed his sword as well. If he'd needed further confirmation that Cloud was no longer the same wide-eyed boy who'd once followed him around like a puppy, this was it. Back then Cloud would never have dreamed of arguing with him or standing up to him like this, and not just because Zack outranked him. Certainly it _never_ would have come to an outright fight.

But if this was what it took to drive it through Cloud's thick skull that he didn't get to do this alone, then Zack would do it. Gritting his teeth, he charged in with a yell, wondering if there would be anything left of their little 'house' by the time they were done. Cloud kicked a chair aside and moved to meet him, angrier than Zack could ever remember seeing him.

Though Zack was _certain_ he'd closed the door to the rest of the church behind him, the air was suddenly heavy with the scent of flowers. A curtain of petals blew between them, and the light in the room increased until they had to squint to see each other. They broke off their attack, both afraid of doing irreparable damage when they couldn't see their target properly. Cloud brought up one hand to shade his eyes automatically, even though he knew it wouldn't block the directionless light.

 _Stop it!_ Aerith sounded distinctly upset, and angry with both of them. _Fighting each other isn't going to get you anywhere!_

Swallowing hard, Zack slowly lowered his sword. She was there, standing between them, her form indistinct at the edges because of the strength of the light. He didn't need to be able to see her clearly to know she was glaring at them, though; her posture told him that, her hands planted on her hips and a stubborn look on her face.

Cloud opened his mouth, but nothing came out. As much as he'd feared she would eventually turn on him for the way he'd allowed her to die, this was the first time she'd ever been upset with him. And 'upset' didn't really cover it. He'd never seen her angry before. "Aerith..."

Her stance eased, and her eyes turned pleading as she held her hands out to both of them. _You have to work together, or he's going to win. Trust in each other._ With that she began to fade, the light going with her as the room returned to normal and the scent of flowers vanished.

Zack and Cloud were left staring at each other, their swords lowered and only a few feet of space between them. Another step and they'd have been in range of each other's blows, and blood would have been shed. Now that the anger had faded and he was thinking clearly again, Cloud was a bit shaken by what had just happened. Had he and Zack really just turned on each other?

"Odin save us," Zack said, his voice a little rough. He was obviously following the same train of thought as Cloud. "What were we _thinking_?"

"I'm not sure we were," Cloud muttered. He dropped his sword, uncaring when it clattered on the boards of the floor, and leaned back against the nearest wall as he covered his face with his hands. He was trembling, he realized, and his head was aching again. He could feel his pulse pounding against the inside of his skull. That made him wonder. "Do you think... could Sephiroth be trying to influence us?" he asked hesitantly.

"It would certainly serve his purposes - whatever they are - to have us at odds," Zack agreed thoughtfully. "And I don't usually get angry that easily. I hate to lay _every_ problem we have at his feet, though. Chances were good we'd have a fight sooner or later. We're both stressed." He slung his sword into its place on his back and made his way to Cloud. Gripping the younger man by the shoulder, he gave his friend a worried look. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Cloud nodded, but lowered his eyes. He'd gotten a lot angrier than Zack, and faster. Granted, he really was irked beyond belief at the way Zack persisted in thinking of him as a kid, but that was no reason for them to draw blades.

Which did argue for it being Sephiroth. Zack had resisted the clone conversion process better than Cloud, so it would make sense that Sephiroth would have less control over him even if he _was_ part of Zack's mind. "If he can influence us like this, we're in real trouble," he concluded, shaking his head.

"We're going to have to watch everything we say and do," Zack nodded, and squeezed his shoulder. "But now we know to stay alert. He won't be able to pull this trick twice. And I think it's more important than ever to go to North Crater; maybe he was trying to prevent us from going there. Or from going there together."

Because, Cloud realized with dawning horror, if he left Zack behind for the three or four days he'd need to get up there and take even a cursory look around, that would be the perfect time for Sephiroth to make a final push to break through. Cloud would be out of reach, and Tifa wouldn't be able to hold him off for long. Cloud might have returned to find nothing left of Edge.

Of course, _Zack_ had been the one arguing that they should go together. So did that mean Sephiroth wanted them together, and Cloud had been right to insist on going alone? Small wonder he had a headache again. This whole mess was making his brain hurt.

"So, we're going together, right?" Zack prompted when Cloud hadn't said anything after a moment. "I mean, you heard the lady. We need to stick together."

"I guess we don't have much choice," Cloud agreed, his voice husky. If Zack really was the one carrying Sephiroth - and it seemed he couldn't come to any other conclusion, after all the evidence that had been dumped into his lap - then it would be nothing short of idiocy for him to leave the older boy alone for that long. Even if having them there together was what Sephiroth wanted. "Go pack, then. And pack _light_."

Zack nodded and headed for his room, leaving Cloud to pick up his sword and the bags he'd dropped. "Please, let this not be a mistake," he whispered, not even sure who he was praying to.

 _Trust_ , Aerith's voice ghosted over his shoulder, and slowly Cloud nodded.

"I just hope you're right," he told her softly. "Because otherwise, this is going to end _really_ badly." She didn't reply, and he couldn't feel her presence nearby. Sighing, he waited for Zack to emerge.

"All right, I'm ready," Zack declared as he emerged with a couple of bags. He'd put on the armour they'd bought for him, similar to what he'd worn as a SOLDIER. He hadn't had any real reason to wear it before this, and the sight of him in it made Cloud feel a little like he'd taken a step back in time.

Which reminded him. "Zack. Do you really think of me as a kid, still?" he asked as he hefted his saddlebags and walked out of the house, gesturing for his friend to follow him.

"No," Zack shook his head immediately, giving Cloud a sincere look. "I swear, I don't. I call you that out of habit, I guess. Does it bother you that much? I can try to stop. But," he warned with a grin, "you know I'm just going to find another nickname for you. Who knows if you'll like the next one any better."

Smiling slightly, Cloud ducked his head. Zack did tend to give people nicknames, he remembered. Anyone he was going to have to address with any sort of regularity, anyway. And anyone he cared about. In truth, Cloud hadn't objected to the nickname before this because it was just part of how he expected Zack to act; one more confirmation that he was real. "It only bothers me when it seems like you mean it," he replied.

"I'm not trying to protect you," Zack told him seriously, his grin fading. "I'm trying to watch your back. That's what partners do. Where are we going, anyway?" he asked curiously as they bypassed the side shed where Cloud stored his bike and the parts they'd scrounged for Zack's.

"We're not taking the bike," Cloud informed him, his smile growing into something like a smirk. It was leavened with anticipation; it had just occurred to him that Zack's reaction to their transportation would probably be entertaining. "We have to cross an ocean to get there, remember. The bike doesn't do so hot on water."

Snorting, Zack shoved at him. Cloud hip-checked him in return, grateful for the return to their normal playful rowdiness. "So what, you've got an airship stashed away outside Edge somewhere?" the older boy asked with a raised eyebrow. "I know your friend Cid has one, but surely you can't have called him and gotten him here already?"

"Nope," Cloud shook his head, his eyes sparkling. "Better than an airship. Faster, too." Though he wasn't sure what would happen with them riding double. "This way."

They walked for a good ten minutes, Zack making guesses and pestering Cloud for information the whole time, and Cloud refusing to give anything away. Now Zack was dying to know exactly what mysterious form of transportation Cloud had tucked away that could cross an ocean in less time than an airship. And why didn't he use it all the time, instead of his bike?

He got his first clue when he heard a familiar warking sound and smelled the musty, spicy scents of hay and feathers. "A chocobo?" he asked, baffled. "What can a chocobo do that a bike can't?"

"Plenty, if you've got the right kind of chocobo," Cloud told him, smiling again. "Sephiroth rode a black, didn't he? You know there are some that can go all kinds of places."

"Yeah, but not over deep water," Zack argued. "Even Seph's black couldn't go over anything deeper than a couple of metres. You said we need to cross an ocean."

Saying nothing, Cloud made his way to the fence and whistled sharply. Kinya was inside the little stable, but she was kept loose so she could come and go from the tiny paddock as she pleased. She gave a happy kweh and trotted out to meet them, her feathers shining in the sun. Zack's jaw dropped, and Cloud couldn't help the laugh that escaped him.

Kinya warked at him and butted her head into his chest, then nibbled at his shirt and tugged sharply on his collar. "Yeah, I know," he murmured in an affectionate tone, catching her head and scratching at the good place just under her crest feathers. Her eyes closed in bliss, and she leaned against the fence to get closer to him. "I haven't been around enough to exercise you. I'm sorry. Things have been crazy." She warked again, clearly willing to forgive him as long as he kept scratching.

"Is that... that can't be... no fucking way," Zack stammered, staring. But he knew a yellow chocobo when he saw one, and that was _not_ a yellow. Not the way her feathers _gleamed_ in the light, like they were reflective.

"She's a gold," Cloud confirmed, turning to smile at Zack. "I bred her myself. There was a period when Sephiroth was sealed away behind the shield around the crater, and we had nothing to do but run around trying to find better weapons and equipment to use against him once we could get _at_ him. Someone told us about some legendary materia that had supposedly been hidden away in places accessible only by a gold chocobo, and I met a man who had actually bred one so I knew it was possible. It passed the time."

"A gold. Holy Shiva," Zack breathed, approaching cautiously. "I don't believe it. I thought you were kidding when you mentioned one earlier! Can I touch her? Are they sharp?"

"Go ahead," Cloud invited him. "The feathers aren't actually metal. She'd weigh as much as a tank if she was actually made of gold! Kinya, this is Zack, he's a friend."

She left off rubbing her head against Cloud's hand to investigate Zack. The older man stayed still and offered his hands to be sniffed, and didn't react when she gave him a testing peck. Satisfied, she gave a little kweh and ruffled her feathers at him in a clear invitation, and he grinned and worked his hand under her body feathers to scratch at the hard-to-reach place under the wing.

"Attention whore," Cloud accused her fondly when that made her start crooning happily. She warked at him and preened a bit of his hair, tugging sharply enough that he winced. "Hey, cut it out!"

"So the legends are true, then?" Zack asked, clearly enraptured with the bird. She certainly deserved the admiration; she was a magnificent specimen, even ignoring the sheer impossibility of her gold colouring. "She really can go over _any_ terrain?"

"Anything at all," Cloud confirmed, patting her on the shoulder. "She's been a lot of help over the years. I try not to overwork her, which is why I don't use her for runs on this continent." It cost a small fortune to ship in enough grain to feed her and pay one of the locals to take care of her, but it was worth every gil to have her nearby instead of having to go out to the chocobo farm to get her. There had been plenty of nights when he'd been unable to sleep for the nightmares, and taken her out for a midnight run. She was faster than any airship ever built, and riding her was like riding the wind itself.

"So, how about it, Kinya? Are you up for a trip?" he asked her. She warked and hopped up and down, flapping her wings hard enough that Zack had to step back to avoid being struck. "Think you can carry both of us?" Cloud continued, tipping his head to indicate Zack.

She paused to consider that, turning her head this way and that as she studied the older man, and finally gave a contented kweh. He took that as assent, and went to get her saddle. He'd taken Tifa or the kids up behind him a few times, so he had a saddle with a pad on the back for a second rider, but he'd never brought anyone as heavy as Zack or for such a long trip. He was glad she'd agreed to try, because otherwise they'd have been forced to wait for Cid and the airship to be available.

"I'm going to ride a gold chocobo," Zack marvelled as he grabbed the rest of her tack without being asked. "Man, there are still some days when I'm half convinced this is all a dream. This would be one of them."

"Yeah, well, let's hope what we find in the crater doesn't turn it into a nightmare," Cloud countered, his eyes darkening. "I'm kind of hoping this will be one of those dreams that ends with a 'happily ever after'." And he'd be praying the whole way there to every god he knew of, to keep this from ending as badly as he was afraid it could.


	11. Chapter 11

The startled whistle Zack gave as Kinya crested the lip of the crater was audible even over the rush of wind from her passage. Cloud reined her in, and she came to a halt perched at the edge of the crater. Before them spread out the awesome destruction and desolation left behind when Holy and Meteor had met in a place that had already been the site of an ancient cataclysm.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Cloud asked quietly, raising his goggles and looking out over the steep slope leading down into the crater. There was no sign of life below them; most of the powerful monsters that had once inhabited this area had been wiped out by Holy and Meteor.

"That's one word for it," Zack agreed, marvelling. The sheer scope of the destruction was astounding. It made the damage done to Midgar look like a temper tantrum thrown by a child over a tower of blocks. He'd seen Gaea's Cliff from a distance a few times on missions as a SOLDIER, but he'd never actually gone up over the cliff and into the crater. It would have been a damn difficult trip without Kinya, that was certain.

"This is where the WEAPONs came from, and Kadaj, Yazoo and Loz," Cloud told him. "Sephiroth created a body for himself here once before. Maybe he's found a way to do it again." Please gods let that be the case. Then he could fight the bastard without having to worry about the fact that he was also fighting Zack.

"Well, we'll never find out by sitting around up here," Zack pointed out. "Let's head down." Cloud nodded and pulled his goggles down again, then nudged Kinya into a bounding lope that took them down over the rocky slope at a fast clip.

The closer they got to the bottom the more Zack could feel a growing ache in his bones, a sense of pressure that made his whole body feel squeezed. By the time they reached relatively level ground his very teeth were vibrating with it. "What is that?" he gasped when Kinya slowed once more.

"The Lifestream," Cloud informed him through gritted teeth. "It's right at the surface here, massive pools of it scattered through the caves. It resonates with the mako in our systems." He could feel it too, stronger here than anywhere else in the world. Even the remains of Mideel couldn't compare to the sheer strength of mako here in the crater. He didn't come here often, and he'd forgotten just how bad it was.

"Right," Zack grimaced at the thought. "Let's do what we came for and get the hell out of here. More than a day or two of this and _I'll_ be the one going batshit." He glanced at Cloud, and winced. The younger man's eyes were shining brightly enough to light a room, and it gave him a look far too reminiscent of the vacant-eyed expression he'd worn when he'd been comatose for so long.

Lifting a hand in front of his face, Zack sighed when he saw the reflected shine of mako changing the colour of his leather glove from black to sickly green. His eyes were glowing just as strongly as Cloud's, so much so that the colour had gone green instead of indigo. That meant the mako levels in the area were _phenomenally_ high, and they weren't even inside the caves yet. He wasn't sure what prolonged exposure might do to them, and he didn't really think he wanted to find out.

Cloud didn't bother to tie or hobble Kinya; she would come when he called, and he wanted her free to run from any remaining monsters that might venture down here. He left her plenty of grain and a bucket of melted snow for water, just in case they ended up staying inside the caves for a while. If something happened and she needed more, she could always go forage outside the crater for a while before returning.

"I'm ready," he declared, hefting his pack onto his back and checking to make sure it didn't interfere with the movement of his sword. Zack gestured for him to take the lead, and Cloud led them down into the first part of the cave system.

The moment they walked into the caves the pressure of the mako increased tenfold, until it was a nearly audible hum hovering just under the level of their ability to hear. Zack shook his head and rubbed at the spot just behind and below his ears where it seemed to resonate, but nothing helped. "I've never felt anything like this," he commented. He'd used a hushed whisper to speak, but his voice still bounced off the walls of the cave until they returned as a twisted, eerie echo that made him shiver.

"It gets worse," Cloud confided, his mouth twisting in something that didn't quite manage to be a smile. "Though if you think this is bad, you should try actually being _in_ the Lifestream."

"I'll pass, thanks," Zack said hastily. "This is close enough for me. Where to? And what are we looking for, exactly?"

"I don't know," Cloud sighed, choosing a path at random and moving deeper into the caves. "I'm kind of hoping I'll know it when I see it." It sounded stupid when he said it out loud like that, but what else where they supposed to do?

Chuckling, Zack patted him on the shoulder. "I've worked with worse battle plans. I'm sure you remember that one time outside of Junon..."

Rehashing old battles and stories helped keep them distracted from the resonation of the mako, and let them concentrate on searching for anything unusual or out of place. Cloud had brought along a couple of old-fashioned mako-powered lanterns; non-mako power sources still hadn't come up with much in the way of portable energy. This close to open vents of the Lifestream they wouldn't even need to recharge the power cells, though Cloud did feel guilty for even this tiny use of mako in an area that was essentially a raw wound on the planet's surface.

They didn't have much choice, though. SOLDIERs could see well in the dark, but the caves were pitch black without a light source of some kind. Unless they wanted to stumble around blindly, they needed the lights.

After about half an hour of walking, Zack frowned as he realized the quality of the light had changed subtly. "What's that? Hey, Cloud, douse your lantern for a second, will you?" he called, twisting the knob on his own lamp to turn it off.

Cloud obeyed, and a moment later they found themselves standing in an eerie, dancing light that didn't quite illuminate anything well enough for them to see. "Mako," Cloud identified it. "There's a pool of Lifestream somewhere nearby. This way."

Leaving the lights off, they cautiously edged down the tunnels until the mako light was bright enough for them to see where they were going. Shortly after that they rounded a corner and encountered the pool itself, shining brightly enough that Zack's eyes watered and he had to look away until they'd adjusted.

"It's beautiful," he said in awe when he was finally able to look at it properly. The shimmer of green should have given him instant bad associations with the tank of mako he'd spent so long immersed in at the labs, but somehow in its native form it seemed less... malevolent.

Soft colours played over the surface of the pool, like a half-seen rainbow of iridescence. Despite the increased ache in his bones, Zack couldn't help but stand there admiring it for a few moments. "Hard to believe we're looking at the lifeblood of the planet itself," he murmured. "Mako in its purest, most concentrated form. No wonder Shinra wanted access to this place so badly. In five minutes they could suck up the equivalent of a year's worth of mako from all the reactors combined."

"And the entire planet would have become a wasteland like the areas outside the cities," Cloud countered just as quietly. He moved to crouch at the edge of the pool, stripping off one glove and reaching out to trail his hand in the viscous green liquid. It coated his fingers like a second skin, tingling and making him shiver at the intensity of the sensation. It was like touching electricity made liquid, like holding a live wire and feeling the current run through you as it connected you to every soul in the world. Was this how Aerith had felt whenever she had used her Cetra powers?

"What are you, nuts?" Zack exclaimed as he glanced over at Cloud and saw the blond dipping his fingers in the liquid. "Hades, Cloud! Those are _souls_ you're dragging your hands in! Not to mention the sheer concentration of mako you're exposing yourself to! You want to trigger yourself back into another coma?"

"Yeah, you're right," Cloud sighed. He was reluctant to pull away; he never felt more alive than when he touched the Lifestream. Which was ironic, because usually the only time it happened was when he was dead. This was the first time he'd been able to touch it with his physical body when he was conscious, and it was intoxicating.

Still, Zack _was_ right. The last thing they needed was Cloud suffering from even a mild case of mako poisoning, and the gods knew he was prone to it. The pool drew him like a moth to a flame, and it was twice as dangerous.

He stood to turn and follow Zack deeper into the caves as the older man moved off again. At least, he tried to. He'd sincerely intended to do so, but when he blinked he realized he was now kneeling at the pool's edge instead of crouching, with his hand in it up to the wrist. Again he attempted to stand up, and this time he got a wave of dizziness for his trouble. When he sorted himself out again, he found himself leaning out even farther over the pool.

"Zack?" Cloud's voice came out as a harsh whisper, not loud enough to get the brunet's attention. Sitting hard on the panic that was threatening to bubble up through him, he forced himself to raise his voice. "Zack!"

"What? Did you find something?" Zack asked, turning back and seeing Cloud leaning out over the pool. He frowned when he saw how tense the younger man's shoulders were, his whole body shaking as if he was straining against something. "Cloud?"

"I can't... I can't pull my hand away," Cloud told him, trying to keep his voice steady but failing as it cracked with fear. It was getting more and more difficult to focus on anything but the seductive shine of the Lifestream, and he had to keep tearing his attention away from the subtle play of colours on the surface.

He _knew_ this sensation. This was how he'd felt when he'd slowly lost his grasp on consciousness as he hung suspended in the mako tank at the Shinra mansion, and again when he'd been dumped into the Lifestream and washed up in Mideel. The real world seemed to fade into insignificance, leaving only the inaudible whisper of the souls in the mako to occupy his attention.

Desperately Cloud struggled against it. Surely he could keep it from pulling him under completely. He'd done the unheard of and fought his way back to sanity not once, but twice. And the second time had been after a full immersion in the Lifestream, causing a level of mako poisoning beyond anything the doctors had ever seen anyone survive.

That had been with help, though. In all honesty, Cloud wasn't sure he could do it on his own. "Zack! Help!" he cried, truly panicking as the mako began to wind its way _up_ his arm in thin green tendrils.

Cursing, Zack sprinted back the few steps to Cloud's side. Dropping to his knees beside his friend, Zack grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled backwards, trying to pull him forcibly out of the Lifestream. It resisted him, clinging to the blond and tugging him even further down. "Cloud! Stay with me, damn it," Zack ordered as he got a glimpse of the younger man's eyes and saw the way they were hazing over. That blank expression was _far_ too familiar, and it made Zack's gut wrench with memories of their time on the run and Cloud's lifeless, unresponsive state.

Aware of Zack's presence only as a burning pressure on his shoulders, Cloud fought the lure of the mako. It was a battle just to remember who he was and why he was there, as the combined 'voices' of thousands of souls poured through his mind. He knew there was something important he was supposed to be doing, some reason why he needed to fight against the desire to join with the other souls, but he couldn't remember what it was. In a few minutes, he would forget about it entirely.

"Don't you _dare_ go comatose on me now, Cloud!" Zack shouted, his voice shrill with fear. "I won't let you go, you hear me? I didn't let you go when we spent a year on the run, and I'm sure as hell not doing it now!" He pulled with all his strength, not caring now if he damaged Cloud's body with his efforts to free the younger man. Injuries could be healed, but somehow he knew that if he let Cloud get sucked any further into the Lifestream it would be a disaster at the very least, and possibly the end of his friend.

"You have too much to live for!" Zack reminded him fiercely, babbling the first thing that came into his head as he watched the intelligence and awareness fade farther and farther from Cloud's glowing eyes. "Remember? Tifa, and Denzel and Marlene. Your other friends. Kinya. _Me_ , damn it! I need you here with me, not drooling in a chair somewhere! Cloud, don't you dare leave me behind. I won't let you, do you hear me? Get yourself back into your own damn head, or... or... so help me, I'll dress up your comatose body in the most embarrassing outfit I can find and take incriminating pictures. And I'll show _everyone_!"

It was a stupid threat, and Zack couldn't believe it had even occurred to him, but if necessity was the mother of invention then desperation was its father. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be working. He wasn't even sure Cloud could hear him any more. The blond's head was drooping, like a puppet with the strings cut, and he wasn't struggling against the hold of the Lifestream any more.

"Oh, no you _don't_ ," Zack muttered, his eyes narrowing in determination. Last time he'd been trapped in his own tank and forced to watch as his friend's mind had slowly slipped away, but he'd be damned if he'd just sit here helplessly _this_ time. Shifting his grip so he only needed one arm to prevent Cloud from sliding any further into the pool, Zack tugged off his other glove with his teeth and plunged his hand into the thick liquid.

Immediately a thousand, a million voices tried to crowd their way into his mind. They didn't speak in words, exactly; more like they were trying to impose themselves directly on him in a sort of wordless state of awareness. It was infinitely worse than his other experiences with mako exposure, and it took everything Zack had to fight them off. He clung to his sense of 'self' with the tenacious will that had given him the ability to go all the way to 1st Class, refusing to allow the mako to wash him away.

Even so he could feel the edges of himself being frayed and worn away, like a thousand mice nibbling at his extremities. It wouldn't take long before even he was bogged down in the sheer weight of the Lifestream, dragged away until he lost his connection to himself. All that would remain would be two empty bodies, left to rot by the side of the pool.

 _Cloud!_ he tried to shout, but if anything actually came out of his mouth he couldn't hear it. He was too disconnected from his body to speak, but he could shape his consciousness into a sort of mental spear and use that to try to communicate. _Cloud!_ Cloud _! Damn it, where are you?_

The voices gibbered back at him senselessly, eating away at him with every moment that passed. Desperately Zack threw himself outwards, casting about for anything that 'felt' familiar. _Cloud! Come back! Follow my voice, come back to me! Cloud!_

He 'touched' something, something more solid and coherent than the rest of what surrounded him, and latched onto it fiercely. His subconscious recognized it as something he 'knew', but the 'shape/feel/taste' of it didn't quite make sense. _Cloud?_

"Not quite." The silky purr wasn't exactly audible, but it was far more articulate than his own attempts at communication and his brain interpreted it as actual speech. The voice was familiar enough to send a shiver down his spine, though he hadn't heard it in the better part of a decade.

 _Sephiroth!_ Zack gasped, and with a mental wrench he suddenly found himself standing in a shapeless space that seemed to be everywhere and nowhere all at once. Before him stood the man he had once worshiped as a hero and a commander, the man who had inspired an entire generation of men and boys to try to become heroes just like him.

Sephiroth looked exactly as Zack remembered him - right down to the condescending smirk that had curved his lips when they'd fought in the reactor. His silver hair and the black leather of his trench coat drifted gently in a non-existent breeze, and he looked real enough to touch.

Automatically Zack groped for his sword, and was surprised when his hand actually met the hilt. He was even more surprised when he pulled it off his back and swung it up into a guard stance, and discovered it was the buster sword rather than the new blade he and Cloud had bought for him.

"You seem startled, Zack," Sephiroth remarked, his voice full of scorn. "Do you actually think this is happening in physical reality? Really, I thought you were more intelligent than this. To think of all the missions I entrusted you with, believing you were competent."

Hands tightening on the familiar hilt until he could feel the crossed pattern of the wrapping even through the leather of his gloves, Zack growled. "I don't know what the hell you're up to, Sephiroth, but it ends here," he informed the other man. Somehow he wasn't surprised when his voice came out sounding real as well. Wherever this was, it wasn't exactly part of the Lifestream as he'd felt it a moment ago.

"You believe you can stop me?" Sephiroth laughed in delight. "You're as stubborn as you ever were. And as foolhardy. Even if you should by some miracle defeat me here, it means nothing. This is all happening only within your mind, made 'real' by your connection to the power of the Lifestream. I am only a representation of myself. You cannot touch my true core, any more than Cloud has ever been able to. That is why I continue to return."

"Oh, yeah?" Zack's eyes narrowed. "If this is all happening in my own mind, then I ought to have control over it. Let's see how you like being trapped in an unbreakable mako tank for a decade or two, huh?"

"Should you be wasting your time attempting to amuse me?" Sephiroth asked, raising an eyebrow. "Weren't you looking for something?"

He lifted his hand, and though Zack would have sworn it had been empty a moment before, now Cloud dangled from it like a broken doll. Sephiroth's hand was fisted in the collar of the blond's shirt, lifting him right off his feet. He looked as he had the last time the three of them had stood together in life, all of sixteen and dressed in his Shinra blues. His arms and legs hung limp in the air, and his face had the vacant expression Zack had come to dread seeing.

Horrified, Zack took an involuntary step towards them. "Cloud! Cloud, wake up!" he begged. " _Cloud!_ "

"He can't hear you, I'm afraid," Sephiroth told him with mocking sympathy. "And he's slipping farther away as we speak. He always did have a terrible weakness to mako poisoning, didn't he? That was why he was rejected as a SOLDIER, as I recall. Another few minutes, and I doubt he'll be salvageable."

"Damn it, haven't you done enough to him?" Zack demanded. "Leave him alone! He never did anything to you but worship you, you bastard. We both did. You betrayed us!" He took another step forward and swung with his sword, but Sephiroth vanished instantly and reappeared a few feet farther back.

"It's not wise for a SOLDIER to lose their temper," Sephiroth told him with another sly smirk. "You might break something. Like Cloud, for instance. What happens here _will_ carry over to your real bodies. Assuming either of you ever manages to escape the hold of the Lifestream."

"What the hell do you want?" Zack asked, frustrated. "Why do you keep doing this? Just die and let yourself rest in peace, already!"

"I will never die," Sephiroth told him, his cat-like eyes glittering with power and madness. "No matter how many times you defeat me, I will always return." Zack took another swipe at him, and this time he reappeared off to the left. Cloud still dangled from his grip like a kitten, unmoving and unresponsive. "There is nothing either of you can do to stop it. All you can do is delay the inevitable. Eventually my mind will prove strongest, and all the world will be helpless before me."

"Not while I still draw breath," Zack snarled. He tossed the sword aside, hardly noticing when it simply dissipated into the ambient energy, and focused everything he had on one thought. _Get Cloud_.

With a wordless shout he propelled himself forward, moving at a speed only a 1st Class could ever be capable of. Sephiroth vanished again, but this time Zack was watching for the miniscule shift in energy that presaged the older man's reappearance, and changed direction in a lightning fast move to head there instead.

He had the satisfaction of catching Sephiroth slightly off guard, and the former general vanished again when Zack was only inches away. Once more Zack forced his body into an abrupt shift in momentum.

This time he succeeded in anticipating Sephiroth's position well enough that he was able to get a hand on Cloud's arm. Locking his grip tightly enough that he felt bone crunch beneath his fingers, Zack hauled backwards with every bit of strength he possessed. Sephiroth was forced to either let go of the blond or be pulled into striking range as well. Something in Zack's expression must have warned the man that the SOLDIER wasn't going to pull his punches, because he released his hold on Cloud and stepped back.

"The more you fight me, the weaker you grow," Sephiroth murmured as he began to fade into the glow of the mako. "Eventually you will tire, and I will triumph. And then I will have first you, and then the entire world under my power."

 _Never_ , Zack swore, clutching Cloud's lifeless body to him. Once again they were falling into the general chaos of the Lifestream as the pocket Sephiroth had created dissolved, and he was terrified that if he lost his grip on the blond he would never find him again.

Of course, hanging on to Cloud wasn't going to do him much good if he couldn't find his own way back to his body. 'Looking' around, Zack felt a stab of panic as he realized how far his mental walls had eroded while he was sniping with Sephiroth. In moments the pressure of the Lifestream would overwhelm him, and he would be as helpless as Cloud.

There was only one thing he could think of that might yet save them. _AERITH!_ he cried, throwing everything he had into a plea for help and a search for her familiar presence. She had to be there somewhere, and he couldn't believe she wouldn't have come to watch over them while they were so close to her.

Sure enough, he felt her warmth and sunny presence enfold him. Strong, supple arms wrapped around his shoulders from behind, and the scent of flowers tickled his nose the way strands of her hair tickled at his neck. _I've got you,_ she murmured in his ear. _Just hold onto him, and I'll lead you home._

The light swelled around them, going from mako green to blinding white, before fading into the near-blackness of the caves. With a shudder of relief Zack realized he was looking out of his own, _physical_ eyes, and could feel the rough rock beneath him and Cloud's body warm against his.

When he looked down he found his grip on Cloud had shifted so he now had a hand locked around the blond's arm the same way he had in the mental projection, and they'd both been dragged just out of reach of the pool. The younger man still had a vacant look in his eyes, but his brow was furrowed ever so slightly.

"C'mon, Cloud, snap out of it!" Zack urged him hoarsely, shaking him roughly. Bone grated under his hand, and he grimaced as he realized he'd broken the younger man's arm in real life as well. Maybe the pain would help jar him back to awareness.

 _Cloud._ White light swelled again as Aerith leaned over them both, one hand on Zack's shoulder to steady herself as she pressed her lips to Cloud's forehead. _Come back to us._

Vaguely Cloud felt the pressure of someone kissing him, the sensation sharp and immediate even through the haze of mako-induced unawareness. Struggling towards it, he suddenly found his connection to his body and gasped and thrashed. Pain shot out from his arm, pushing him further into consciousness, and strong arms embraced him. Coughing, feeling oddly like he ought to be half drowned even though there was nothing in his lungs, he shuddered.

"Zack?" he croaked, finally managing to focus his eyes and seeing familiar indigo eyes staring down at him in concern. The indigo colour was nearly swallowed by the glow of green, and the shifting light of the Lifestream pool lit the older man's face in odd ways, but it was definitely him.

Zack couldn't remember ever being so glad to hear his name in his life. "Cloud! Thank the gods, you're awake," he breathed, pulling the younger man into a fierce embrace. A little bewildered but more than willing to participate, Cloud tried to wind his arms around Zack in turn and hissed in pain when the movement jarred his broken arm.

"What... what happened?" he asked as Zack pulled away hastily and fumbled for a potion.

"You got pulled into the Lifestream," Zack summed up quickly, finding what he was looking for and breaking the seal on the bottle before handing it to Cloud. The blond drank it all in one gulp, the relief from pain clearly visible in his expression as the magic-laced liquid went to work. "I went after you, and Sephiroth was there. Sorry about your arm; I didn't want to risk losing my grip on you, so I hung on a little too tight."

"That's okay," Cloud assured him, shuddering. "I... I was almost lost even so, I think." He made the mistake of glancing at the Lifestream pool, and found his gaze caught as if he'd been hypnotized. It took a massive effort of will to pull himself away again, and he buried his face in Zack's shoulder with a shiver.

"I'm... I'm not sure I can stop myself from doing it again," he realized in horror. "It's _calling_ to me." He could hear it still, the low murmur of voices in his mind, singing a seductive song to entrap him. They whispered of a release from pain and fear, from sorrow and grief. They promised an end to his struggles, a chance to stop fighting. And over it all, faintly, he thought he could make out the grating sound of Sephiroth's laughter.

"We're getting the hell out of here," Zack decided, grimacing. He'd seen the way Cloud's eyes had been caught, and he didn't like it in the least. Nor was he any more certain of his own ability to resist the effects of the concentrated mako, not when he felt shaky and worn thin like there were holes in his mental perception of himself. "I'm not sure I can get either of us out if it happens again, and I don't think we can count on Aerith to keep rescuing us. There's a limit to her strength, too."

Somehow they made it to their feet, leaning on each other for support and strength. Cloud wrapped his arm over Zack's shoulder and huddled against the older man's side. For his part Zack was unpleasantly reminded of the way he'd carried the blond when they'd been on the run, especially since he'd just been forced to watch Cloud skirt the edge of the same kind of comatose state, but the feel of Cloud working to support him in turn was reassuring.

"Don't let go of me," Zack instructed him, grateful that his voice shook only a little. The thought of what might have happened if he'd let Cloud come here on his own was terrifying; the blond would have been lost forever. "And I won't let go of you. We'll make it out of here together - same way we do everything else."


	12. Chapter 12

_"Still you try to resist me," Sephiroth murmured. His amused smirk was audible, and sure enough when he came into sight a moment later it was visible as well. The former general moved like a giant cat, sleek and precise and unthinkingly seductive. He'd always been beautiful, though in the past he'd hardly seemed aware of the fact. Now he used his beauty like another sort of weapon, obviously aware of exactly how much he affected his prey._

 _They were back in the mako-shaded no-space, but the wavering green light somehow didn't overwhelm Sephiroth's pale colouring. His hair was a shimmering fall of silver, his eyes a bright green that pierced through even the equally green glow of the mako. "Don't you realize how futile your struggles are?" he asked as he approached. "Give in to me now, and I'll make it relatively painless for you. You have always been mine, one way or another. Why do you continue to deny it?"_

 _He tried to step back as Sephiroth came within touching distance, and found himself pressed against a solid surface. He was in the mako tank again, he realized with a shudder of fear and the first hints of despair. Some part of him was aware that this had to be a dream, but the reassurance didn't help._

 _The glass wall of the tank didn't seem to hinder Sephiroth at all, as the man reached right through it. He shivered at the feel of cool leather against his skin as Sephiroth stroked his cheek with a mockingly light touch. It felt real, so real he could smell the scent of leather and flesh even over the sharp stench of the mako._

 _"Perhaps I've been attempting the wrong approach," Sephiroth purred, leaning closer. "I saw the way you looked at me, back then. I might not have realized what it meant at the time, but I do now. You wanted me, didn't you? You eventually learned to work around it, but you never really stopped wanting me." He was close enough now that their mouths brushed with every breath, sparking a reaction so strong it felt like there should have been visible jolts of electricity between them._

 __No _, he protested, but the denial didn't even reach his lips. Oh yes, he'd wanted Sephiroth, and wanted him badly. The dreams he'd had, some nights when they were out in the field... who wouldn't have lusted after their beautiful, powerful, charismatic general? Everyone had suffered from at least some form of hero worship._

 _For a man who hadn't even recognized lustful adoration when it was directed at him, Sephiroth was surprisingly skilful at teasing him. Pressed back against the glass wall of the tank, he had nowhere to go as Sephiroth brushed their lips together again and again, taunting and promising without actually delivering. Sheer stubbornness held him in place and kept him from actively seeking more, but his resolve was thin and he knew it wouldn't be long before it snapped._

 _He whimpered as Sephiroth relented and kissed him at last, and long-denied hormones surged to the front of his awareness. Never in a million years had he ever imagined he would_ get _Sephiroth's attention, not like this. The reality of it was so much better than he'd dreamed that it was overwhelming. The temptation to give in and just savour the contact, to stop fighting and let Sephiroth have what he wanted, was nearly irresistable._

 _But this wasn't about love, or lust, or even affection. This was about power, and manipulation, and domination. If he gave in now, the reward would be destruction for himself and everything he'd ever cared about. He _knew_ that... and yet, there was a part of him that yearned for the peace of the oblivion that Sephiroth offered. Not to mention the drugging addiction of his poisonous touch._

"Yes, that's it," the former general encouraged him, now dragging his gloved fingertips down over flesh that had become inexplicably bare of clothing. "Give in to what you want, to what we both want." He stepped back out of reach again, provoking another helpless whimper, and smiled. "Come to me. Give yourself to me, and be free. Come." He beckoned enticingly.

The glass wall of the tank was between them again, but suddenly it felt less like a cage and more like a shield. If he took a step forward he was certain he would pass right through it, and then he would be completely within Sephiroth's grasp. All he had to do was take that step, and all the fighting and struggling would be over. One small step, and he could have the man he'd once dreamed of with a longing so sharp it still burned him all these years later.

One step...

An indignant wark and a sudden sharp pain in his ear jarred Zack abruptly out of sleep. He flailed and squawked in a way that sounded embarrassingly like a chocobo, and found himself falling painfully flat on his ass. Confused, he struggled to get his bearings and figure out what the hell was going on. Why had he fallen? Had he been standing in his sleep?

The slightly reflective bulk looming over him clacked softly, like the sound of two bones clattering together. Thinking it was a monster, Zack groped frantically for a sword that wasn't there. Cursing, he attempted to scramble back and put some distance between him and it before it could attack, trying to figure out where his sword and bracer had gotten to.

"Kweh?" it said plaintively, and he relaxed as he finally identified the 'monster' as Kinya. She'd been clicking her beak to make the bone-like sound. She'd also apparently bitten him at some point, he realized as he reached up to touch the burning spot of pain in the arch of his ear and discovered it was bleeding.

"What the hell?" he asked, his voice hoarse and confused. Looking around, he realized he'd come some distance away from the place where they'd made camp about halfway up the wall of the crater. The tent was just barely visible in the distance above him; he'd come most of the way back down to the crater floor, not far from the cave entrance.

He shivered, and it was only partly from nerves. He was dressed in only his pants and a thin undershirt, what he'd be wearing when they'd collapsed into the tent that night. Neither of them had been in any shape to attempt to leave the area even on chocobo-back, and they'd been hoping to make another go of investigating the caves once they'd recovered a bit, now that they knew enough to avoid the Lifestream pools. They'd agreed to make camp just far enough up the cliff that the mako in the caves wasn't making their bones vibrate.

Not quite far enough, it seemed. Zack swallowed hard as he realized he'd been walking in his sleep, going right back to the caves. Apparently Cloud wasn't the only one being drawn by the Lifestream, he'd just felt it more strongly at the time.

Speaking of whom... Cursing, Zack hauled himself to his feet and hissed in pain as he realized he'd sliced the soles open on the sharp rocks of the crater. Well, that was what he got for walking around without his boots on. He didn't have his sword either, or even his bracer. In short, he was basically helpless - but if _he_ was out here on the slope, he was willing to bet Cloud was out here somewhere, too.

"Where's Cloud?" he asked Kinya urgently when a quick look around didn't show any sign of the blond. Was it possible he was still sleeping safely back in the tent?

Any hope of that was dashed when the gold shook her head and warked, ruffling her feathers and stretching her neck out in the direction of the cave entrance. She then looked pleadingly back at Zack and made mournful little crooning noises deep in her throat.

"Down there, huh?" Zack concluded grimly. The cave entrance was too small for Kinya to enter; she must not have been able to wake Cloud before he'd gone inside. "Don't worry, girl. I'll get him back. Can you get me down there?" He could ride bareback for such a short distance, and otherwise he was going to be slowed by the damage he'd done to his feet. With no items or materia he couldn't heal himself, and he didn't think taking the time to go back to camp for his equipment would be wise.

She half-crouched and he slung himself over her back. In a few quick, teeth-jarring bounds she reached the cave entrance and danced from foot to foot, obviously impatient for him to bring Cloud back to her.

"Just wait here," he instructed her as he slid off her back. Ignoring the pain in his feet, wondering how he'd managed to sleepwalk through it, he trotted off into the cave.

He didn't have a light this time, and once he'd gone around two or three curves the ambient light from the opening was gone. In the pitch darkness, however, his other senses seemed enhanced, and he could smell the strong copper tang of blood and the stench of mako in a trail leading from the entrance deeper into the caves. Cloud had walked his feet to ribbons the same way Zack had, and the trail of bloody footprints was fresh enough for him to follow if he was careful.

Of course, the scent trail might point him in the right direction, but it didn't stop him from running into walls or rock formations. In short order he was bruised and scraped on all sides, and if he hadn't been a SOLDIER he'd probably have been courting a concussion or broken bones.

Zack moved as fast as he dared, and was gratified to hear the faint sound of footsteps before too many minutes had passed. Cloud was just ahead of him somewhere, and they still had a long way to go before they reached the Lifestream pool again. Barring any further unforeseen disasters, he should be able to catch up with the blond well before Cloud got to the pool.

"Cloud!" he called, one hand out before him as he picked up his pace marginally. "Cloud! Wake up! Stop _moving_ , damn it!"

The younger man didn't respond, but now Zack could hear him breathing over the shuffling noise of his footsteps. A moment later Zack literally ran into the blond, sending them both tumbling to the rocky ground together.

"Cloud!" Anticipating another attack attempt, like what had happened the last few times Cloud had been jarred unexpectedly out of sleep, Zack quickly found and pinned the younger man's arms to his side and shook him roughly. "Cloud, can you hear me?"

Jolted suddenly awake, Cloud gave a muffled shout and tried to flail, only to find himself pinned. For a panicked moment he thought he was under attack before Zack's voice finally penetrated. "Zack?" he gasped, confused by the feel of rock beneath him and utter lack of light. "What the hell is going on?" He'd been sleeping in the tent, wrapped up in his bedroll with Zack next to him. How had he gotten back into the caves? Was this another dream?

Relieved more than he could say to hear Cloud speak coherently, Zack sighed and relaxed his grip on the younger man. "You were sleepwalking," he explained, shifting so he was sitting beside Cloud rather than on him, careful not to lose contact with his friend entirely. "We both were, actually. Kinya managed to wake me up before I got to the caves, but you were already out of her reach."

Taking stock of himself, Cloud grimaced as he realized how hurt he was. His feet were throbbing with pain now that he was aware of them, and several bloody spots on his fingers and ears were probably from Kinya's attempts to wake him. Oddly, he wasn't even bruised on his front or his sides - he'd been navigating his way through the twisted tunnels as if he'd been wide awake and had plenty of light, not asleep and in the dark.

Shaken, he ran a hand over his face. "I can hear it," he realized, biting his lip. "The Lifestream, it was calling to me. It's still calling to me. I was... there was something..." He frowned, the details already fading from his mind. The siren song of the Lifestream was still there, though, tempting him to just give in and release himself to it once more.

"Yeah, me too," Zack agreed. He was more than a little unnerved. This was the second time they'd nearly been lost to the Lifestream, and this time he didn't think they'd have made it out again. Cloud seemed more strongly attracted than he was, but considering how much more exposure he'd had to it that was probably to be expected. The fact that Zack had been drawn as well meant that they couldn't count on him to get Cloud out of it if it happened again.

"You think Sephiroth is behind this?" Cloud asked warily. Zack had told him about what had happened while he'd been in that near-comatose state again; Cloud had been sickened by the thought of how close they'd both come to losing themselves forever. He was fairly sure now that Sephiroth _had_ wanted them both to come up here together; he'd been able to use Cloud as bait to lure Zack into the Lifestream, where Sephiroth was more likely to be able to overpower him. And if he could call them in their sleep, they wouldn't be safe until they were out of easy walking range of the Lifestream pools.

"Maybe, maybe not," Zack said grimly. "Whether he is or not, we need to get out of here. All the way out of here, I mean. Someone else is going to have to search the crater, if anyone does. This place is too dangerous for us."

"Damn it!" Cloud swore, and pounded his fist on the rock. "This is ridiculous. I should be stronger than this! At this rate, Sephiroth is going to win!" After all his struggles, after everything he'd overcome, was he still this weak? Could Sephiroth still manipulate him so easily?

He _had_ to find an answer, before the bastard took over Zack completely and he was forced to face the choice of letting Sephiroth win, or killing his best friend. It was a choice he couldn't live with, no matter what he decided. Frustrated, he punched the rock again, hard enough to make bits of it crack.

"Stop that," Zack ordered him, and caught his hand before he could do enough damage to make it start bleeding too. "There is no 'should be'. Everyone has limits, and this is one of ours. He's not going to win, because we're not going to let him win. We'll just have to find another way of stopping him."

Cloud nodded reluctantly, but inside he was desperately afraid they were running out of time. "We need to get back to the camp and get our equipment," he said.

"Yeah, and reassure Kinya before she plucks all her feathers out from worry or something," Zack said, forcing a note of levity into his voice. Shoving himself painfully to his feet, he caught Cloud's hand and tugged him up.

Accepting the help, Cloud staggered to his feet and nearly fell into Zack once he was up. The older man caught him, and impulsively Cloud wrapped his arms around his friend's waist and hid his face against Zack's shoulder. It was easier to block out the call of the Lifestream when he could focus on such a tangible reason for him to go on living. It was also easier to stop worrying about Sephiroth for a moment when he could focus on Zack instead. "It helps," was all he said in an awkward attempt at explanation.

Not begrudging Cloud the embrace in the least, Zack returned it and buried his nose in the blond's soft, spiky hair. "Yeah, it does," he agreed, and it was true. The subtle tug he hadn't even consciously realized was there was fading, making it easier for him to breathe.

Of course, Cloud realized, being this close to Zack presented its own problems. Especially considering neither of them was wearing very much. He winced as he realized his body was reacting, and they were pressed closely enough together that it would be only a matter of moments before the former SOLDIER realized Cloud was hard against him.

Then Zack shifted, and Cloud was astonished to discover that his friend was just as hard as he was. He knew why _he_ was reacting, it was all but inevitable when he was so close to the object of his crush in such intimate darkness, but why was Zack aroused? "Zack?" he whispered, confused and struggling not to react to the feel of Zack against him.

"Gods, Cloud," Zack groaned, shivering as he felt Cloud rock up against him slightly. Before he quite knew what was happening they were kissing, a hard, passionate embrace that had more to do with a need for physical comfort and reassurance than affection. He had no idea which of them had started it, but it was obvious that neither of them was eager to finish it.

Since the morning at Tifa's when he'd first realized that half of his reasons for not acting on his attraction to Cloud were no longer valid, Zack had been struggling with himself over his growing lust for his friend. Reminders that Cloud was taken didn't carry much weight when Tifa herself had said she wouldn't be angry with them if they did end up together, and admonitions that he shouldn't take advantage of Cloud's crush on him grew thinner with each day that passed as they rebuilt their friendship into something better than it had ever been before.

And now, with both of them frightened more than either was willing to admit by what had happened that day, they were clinging to each other with the fierceness of a drowning victim clutching at a lifeline. This was real and tangible and had nothing to do with Sephiroth or the Lifestream, and so it was something safe to focus on. The pain of their injuries faded into insignificance as lust and pleasure swept over them.

Without thinking about it Zack pressed Cloud back into the nearest cave wall, hard enough to have left bruises if Cloud hadn't been SOLDIER-tough. Cloud didn't seem to mind, yielding to Zack and even encouraging him by rocking his hips up again. Some part of Zack was distantly aware that this was probably a really bad idea, but he couldn't quite remember why.

Then Cloud turned the tables on him, pushing away from the wall and shoving Zack back, instead. All the breath went out of Zack's lungs as he hit the other side of the tunnel, and Cloud didn't give him a chance to get it back again, leaving him dizzy and breathless as they kissed. Usually Zack had been the dominant partner in his previous sexual encounters, but he found he didn't mind in the least having Cloud take control from him.

Odin alone knew how far they might have gone, but a shrill and plaintive 'kweh!' interrupted them. Pulling away with a gasp, Cloud steadied himself with both hands on Zack's shoulders and tried to remember how to breathe normally. "Kinya," he said hoarsely.

"Yeah, she was pretty worried about you," Zack informed him, his own voice coming out more than a little husky. He cleared his throat and attempted to clear his mind as well, with limited success. "We should go, before we get sucked back in." And he wasn't certain he was even talking about the call of the Lifestream anymore.

They helped each other walk because otherwise neither of them could have stayed on their feet, but the closeness that had seemed natural and enticing a moment before suddenly felt awkward and uncertain. Neither of them quite knew what to say, and the longer the silence dragged on the more difficult it became to break it.

Finally they turned a corner and had to squint as the moonlight shone down through the cave entrance, unbearably bright to their dark-adapted eyes. Cloud blinked several times rapidly, forcing his eyes to adjust, and found Kinya standing just outside the entrance hopping from foot to foot anxiously.

Grateful for the distraction, he let go of Zack and limped over to lean on her instead, stroking her crest feathers as she butted her head into his chest and warked at him sadly. "It's okay, girl, I'm fine," he murmured, trying to reassure her. "Thanks to you." She nibbled gently at his fingertips in a clear apology for the bloody marks she'd left behind, and he gave her a small smile. "It's okay, Kinya. You did the right thing, trying to wake me up. Are you up for a hard ride? We need to get home as fast as we can. The sooner we're away from here, the better."

She warked in agreement and turned to present her side, fluffing one wing at both of them. Cloud scrambled up onto her back, and offered a hand up to Zack.

For a long moment Zack looked up at him, and something unspoken passed between them - an agreement, to set aside what had happened for now and concentrate on getting out of there. Zack wasn't sure whether to be grateful not to have to deal with consequences, or worried that it would come back to bite them in the ass. Because it was a sure bet that 'for now' would end up being 'for always', since when would either of them ever want to bring up the subject?

On the other hand, they _did_ need to get the hell out of there. Zack nodded slightly and accepted the hand up, and let Cloud pull him onto Kinya's back.

If walking next to each other had felt uncomfortable after the kiss, then clutching at Cloud as they bounced along riding bareback was a hundred times worse. At least, Zack thought wryly, the worst of his arousal had been dampened both by the shock of Kinya's cry and the awkward atmosphere between them, or the ride would have left him in serious pain. Since he didn't hear any agonized noises from Cloud, he assumed the same was true of the younger man.

"We'll head back to Edge as fast as we can, and let Tifa know what happened," Cloud called back over his shoulder, trying his best to ignore the feel of Zack pressed up against his back. It was a lot more difficult than it had been before. The shock of that kiss was still working its way through his system, and he wasn't quite sure what the hell to make of it. Did that mean Zack wanted him back? Or had it just been a reaction to the scare they'd had?

Why couldn't anything ever be simple in his life? Cloud wondered ruefully. No matter what he did, it always seemed to end up in a complicated mess. Now he just had to pray that his friendship with Zack wouldn't end as badly as all the _other_ messes he'd made in his life.

By the time they dragged themselves back into Edge midway through the next morning, they were completely exhausted. Kinya had run her heart out, but even her legendary stamina had limits and Cloud could feel her trembling beneath him with each step. She'd been reduced to a not very fast walk, her head and tail drooping so low they threatened to drag in the dust. He felt bad for pushing her so hard, but even with an ocean and a good chunk of two continents between him and the Lifestream he was still nervous.

Tugging on the reins, he directed Kinya back towards the 7th Heaven rather than her stables. It was closer, and he could trust one of the neighbours to walk her out and make sure she got taken care of before she was stabled again. He certainly wasn't in any shape to do it himself, and Zack was only marginally better off.

Besides, Tifa needed to know what had happened. She'd _kill_ him if he tried to keep something like this from her.

Holed up in her own tiny office working on the inventory and records for the bar, Tifa paused midway through adding a column of numbers when she heard heavy footsteps in the back hall. The kids were still out at the school that had been organized by a former teacher, and anyway she'd heard Cloud come home exhausted often enough to recognize the sound of it. The fact that Zack didn't sound any better worried her even more.

Setting her pen down, she pushed away from the desk and hurried down the stairs to meet them. "What happened?" she blurted out when she got a look at them. Neither of them was visibly injured, but they looked like they ought to be. Both men were worn and had the pinched look that comes from a combination of fear, pain, and worry.

"Long story," Zack told her with a sigh, running one hand through his hair. The battle against Sephiroth in the Lifestream had drained him more than he'd first realized, and the lack of sleep hadn't helped. All he really wanted was to collapse and sleep for a week, but he'd fought battles in worse shape than this and he could keep going as long as he had to. He'd pay for it later, though.

"Sit, both of you," Tifa ordered sternly. "I'll get you something to eat, and you can tell me what's going on."

Already crumpled into one of the chairs with his head in his hands, Cloud looked up long enough to ask, "Can you find someone to take Kinya back to the stable? She's had it rougher than we have, and I hate to leave her out there in that state."

"Of course," Tifa agreed, surprised. Cloud didn't often take the chocobo out, and she couldn't imagine what would have driven him to push her so far he was worried about her. She ducked out the back door, and gasped when she saw the state the poor bird was in.

"Oh, sweet Shiva," she murmured, running one hand over the drooping hen's shoulder and neck. "You poor thing. What on earth have you three been up to?"

"Kweh," Kinya told her wearily. Sighing, Tifa patted her one last time before she straightened.

"I'll find someone to take you home and give you a good feed and a rubdown," she promised the gold. And then she was going back inside and getting some answers, because she _really_ couldn't imagine what could possibly have been so important that Cloud would treat his beloved bird so badly.

Finding someone to take care of her was a matter of moments, and Tifa grabbed a couple of bowls of stew leftover from dinner the night before on her way through the kitchen. In the doorway she paused, looking at the two men in confusion.

In all the times they'd come by the bar to visit, unless it was completely packed they'd invariably sat in the same two seats, though they switched places according to whichever of them got there first. She'd never really put any thought to it, assuming it was just a matter of preference and habit. Now, although they'd taken their customary chairs, they were sitting noticeably further apart than usual. They were at opposite corners of the table, essentially, as far as they could get and still be at the same table.

Baffled, she studied their body language for some indication of why they'd changed suddenly. It was hard to be sure, because their weariness was so overwhelming it was difficult to see anything else, but it seemed like neither of them was willing to look at the other. Which was bizarre, because usually Cloud followed Zack like a beacon, and Zack was forever touching Cloud's shoulder or ruffling his hair or otherwise in contact with him.

"All right, start from the beginning," Tifa told them, moving towards them and setting the bowls in front of them. She was even more concerned when they both looked blankly at the stew for a moment before seeming to remember what they were supposed to do with it. "Where _were_ the two of you?"

Without thinking Cloud and Zack traded a glance to see who should start. Almost instantly they looked back at their bowls again. The awkwardness between them hadn't passed with the journey; if anything it had gotten worse thanks to the enforced closeness. Cloud felt ready to crawl under the table and die whenever Zack looked at him; he couldn't believe he'd let his crush get the better of him like that.

At least Zack hadn't pushed him away in disgust or something. He was still trying to figure out just what it meant that the older man had in fact _returned_ the kiss, and seemed just as into it as Cloud had been, but then hadn't said or done anything since to indicate further interest. Having Tifa there like a silent accusation that he'd been cheating didn't help any, either.

"We went up to the North Crater," he started the explanation, using the story to help get his mind off what had happened. Though that was one detail he definitely _wasn't_ including in what he told Tifa!

Listening as the two men took turns relating what had happened, Tifa felt chills go down her back. The thought that she'd nearly lost Cloud to mako exposure _again_ was bad enough, but the idea that Sephiroth had been lurking there just out of sight, waiting for the chance to make his move, was terrifying.

"What are you going to do now?" she wanted to know when they seemed to be finished. Once again she was getting the sense that they were keeping something from her, and she was starting to have suspicions about what kind of 'something' it might be, based on their behaviour. But dealing with Sephiroth's threat was much more important, at least for the moment.

"I don't know," Cloud admitted wearily. "We can't go back there, that much is certain. But we don't have any other leads."

"I can't help but wonder if he was trying to keep us from finding something," Zack put in. Leaning one elbow on the table, he rested his chin on his palm and toyed with his spoon with his free hand. The suspicious look Tifa was giving them said she was already onto the fact that something had happened, but unfortunately he didn't have any reassurances for her this time. He wasn't sure _what_ was between him and Cloud at this point, and he was even less certain of where it was going.

"Either that, or he just wanted the chance to lure us into _his_ territory," Cloud muttered sourly. "He's got a hell of a lot more control over himself and the world around him in the Lifestream than we ever could. He spent a long time in it, after all. And Jenova may not have been an Ancient, but his connection to her seems to have given him powers over it all the same."

"Still, he went to a lot of effort to chase us off," Zack argued. "For all we know, his big weak point was right around the corner. We'll never know if we can't find some way to go back there."

"Then I'll go," Tifa said, and they both looked at her in surprise. She raised an eyebrow at them and planted her hands on her hips when their expressions turned doubtful. "Don't you give me that look," she scolded both of them. "I may not be a SOLDIER, but I also don't have your weakness to mako exposure. I'll take Cid with me, and maybe see if we can find Yuffie or Vincent. We'll scour the whole place from top to bottom. If there's anything there to find, we'll find it."

"So we're just supposed to let you go off and maybe get yourself killed by Sephiroth while we laze around here?" Cloud asked in disgust. He didn't like the idea of sending Tifa into the caves, but he also didn't have an argument against it that wouldn't leave her mad at him for a month. She wasn't the sort of girl to appreciate being protected like a helpless innocent, that was for sure. And she was right that none of the others had nearly the same potential to be sucked in by the call of the Lifestream - or Sephiroth - as he and Zack did. It was the logical solution.

"You're damn right, that's what you'll do," Tifa agreed fiercely. "You _both_ need a break. Look at you! You're ready to keel over into your stew. Sephiroth hasn't been seen the entire time you were gone - it's obvious he _is_ following you two, so it's not as if we'll have to face him up there. And anything else, we can handle."

Raising his hands in a gesture of surrender, Zack couldn't help but smile at her. "All right, all right, no need to bite our heads off," he said, amused despite himself at her ferocity. "We'll stay put like good little boys. Right, Cloud?" Forgetting himself, he grinned at his friend, and sighed when Cloud glanced at him and away again quickly.

"I still don't like it," Cloud grumbled, but it was a half-hearted protest. The truth was that he _was_ exhausted and not in any shape for a battle of any kind, certainly not another attempt to resist the call of the Lifestream. The fact that Sephiroth hadn't been seen while they were away only depressed him more; it was yet one more piece of evidence in the growing mountain that pointed to Zack as the carrier.

"Nobody is asking you to like it," Tifa replied tartly. "Just to do it. And you're not being given much choice about that." And hopefully Zack and Cloud would take the opportunity to sort out whatever it was that had made them so uncomfortable with each other; as much as she disliked the idea of possibly losing Cloud, watching him be so painfully awkward with his best friend was much worse.


	13. Chapter 13

"Okay," Tifa declared, thinking out loud as she surveyed the empty bar with her hands on her hips. "I think that covers everything. I got hold of Cid last night, he said he would take a stab at finding Vincent and come by to get me by this afternoon. If we can't find him we'll pick Yuffie up in Wutai instead. I've asked one of the neighbours to watch Marlene and Denzel - not that I don't think you could handle it," she added hastily, glancing over to where Cloud leaned against one wall, "but I thought, given the way things have been going, that you might end up having to go tearing off and I didn't want you to have to worry about them."

"Sounds fair," Cloud agreed, nodding. He'd have agreed whether it was fair or not, actually; when Tifa got into one of her 'organizing' moods, it was best to just stand back out of her way and let her do what she wanted.

Seated in his usual corner with his arms crossed on the table in front of him, Zack was looking on with a feeling of admiration and faint disbelief. The amount of work Tifa had accomplished in the thirty or so hours since she'd decided to go up to the crater was nothing short of amazing. "You know, I wish we'd had you as a quartermaster in the war," he remarked, shaking his head. "We'd never have run up against all the shortages that we did, if you'd been in charge."

"And she'd have ended up planning half the battles as well," Cloud chuckled, holding his hands up to ward off the glare Tifa gave him. "We'd probably have won more of them, if she had," he added, and she looked mollified. It was the truth, though.

"Probably," Zack agreed with a laugh. "Sounds like you've got everything well in hand, Tifa. What'd you call us for?"

"I just wanted to let you know what was going on," Tifa said absently, frowning as she scanned the room again. There was something she was forgetting, she was sure of it. "I'll contact you at least once a day by phone to let you know we're okay up there. So keep your phone on!"

"I haven't turned it off in weeks!" Cloud protested. Not since Zack had returned, and not only because his friend had teasingly nagged him about it at first. He'd spent a lot less time brooding lately, the matter with Sephiroth notwithstanding.

Glancing at Zack, he sighed to himself. Now if they could just get rid of this continued awkwardness between them, he'd be much happier. It wouldn't solve all their problems, not even close, but it would make him feel a lot better. At least they'd reached a point where they didn't avoid even looking at each other, but Zack still had a tendency to move to put distance between them any time Cloud got too close. And 'too close' was fairly relative.

That was why he was standing all the way over here by the door, leaning against the wall instead of sitting next to Zack like he usually did. He hadn't wanted to see Zack subtly shift his chair farther away, or even get up to pace or some other activity that would get him away from Cloud.

If not for the way he sometimes caught the older man looking at him wistfully, Cloud might have been afraid that Zack's behaviour was an indication that the ex-SOLDIER wanted to end their friendship. He was _very_ glad nothing like this had ever happened before, when they were both in Shinra, because back then he'd have been _sure_ that was what it meant. As it was, coming from an older and at least somewhat wiser point of view, he was starting to develop a suspicion that actually made him rather happy, if a bit conflicted.

Or at least, it would have, if they hadn't had the spectre of Sephiroth hanging over them with ever increasing pressure. That sort of put a damper on just about everything good in Cloud's life at the moment.

"You guys don't need anything, right?" Tifa asked them, her brow furrowed as she tried to remember what she was forgetting. They got most of their food and supplies through her, thanks to Cid and his airship, but they'd stocked up just recently.

"We're fine, mother," Zack told her, his voice overly patient but a grin lurking just beneath the surface. "We'll wear our rainboots and eat our vegetables and check your mail and everything, I promise."

"Mail!" Tifa exclaimed, finally reminded of what it was she'd made a note not to forget. Moving to the bar, she reached behind it and grabbed a cream-coloured envelope with Cloud's name on it. "This came for you this morning," she explained, shoving it towards him. "Cid called right after, and I forgot about it."

"Who's sending me a letter?" Cloud asked as he took it, mystified. The handwriting wasn't familiar, and any of his friends would have just called him. Or called Tifa, if they were afraid he wouldn't answer. "It's got a Costa del Sol postmark," he noted, now truly baffled.

"Who do you know in Costa del Sol?" Tifa asked, curious now. She hadn't looked closely at the letter before shoving it away under the bar.

"Nobody, as far as I know," Cloud shrugged. "Well, only one way to find out." He tore the envelope open and removed a thick piece of paper, unfolding it to find an official-looking invitation. A brightly coloured brochure fell out as well, but he ignored that for the moment. Tifa scooped it up and looked it over, one eyebrow rising.

Standing, Zack made his way over to see what was going on, peering over Tifa's shoulder at the brochure. "Silver Oasis," he read, bemused. "A respite from the desert of life. What the hell?"

"It's from Dio," Cloud told them, a smile quirking the corner of his lips. "Looks like he's started up a new entertainment complex. I'm surprised it took him so long, honestly." Gold Saucer had been closed when the reactors shut down, unable to function without the high, steady amounts of power the reactors had been able to provide.

"Why write to you, specifically, though?" Tifa wondered, confused. She wouldn't have put it past the man to send brochures to every person in the world, but _she_ hadn't received one. And frankly, the people in Edge barely had the resources to keep themselves alive. They didn't have extra to spend even going overseas, let alone throwing it away on carnival rides or betting on the races.

"He's holding a series of special chocobo matches as an inauguration," Cloud explained, shrugging. "He wants me and Joe to race, just the two of us."

"On Kinya? Is he kidding?" Tifa laughed. "Nobody's dumb enough to bet on Teioh when you're riding her. She wins every time."

"No, on Karasu," Cloud shook his head. "That would make it a fair race, at least. It would be good to ride again," he added somewhat wistfully. He'd enjoyed being a jockey, the thrill of the race and the high of victory, having the crowds yelling and cheering him on.

"Wait, hang on," Zack said slowly, putting pieces together in his head. "Are we talking about _Teioh Joe_ , here? The jockey who's never been beaten? The owner - former owner, I guess - of Gold Saucer wants _you_ to come race against _Teioh Joe_ as a special opening event?"

"Oh? Don't tell me Cloud forgot to mention that he's a world famous jockey," Tifa teased, smiling as Cloud flushed and looked down, embarrassed. "Even before he managed to breed Kinya, he was winning a lot of races. He's a household name, the only man ever to beat Teioh Joe not just once, but consistently."

"Ifrit's balls!" Zack exclaimed, staring at Cloud in shock and delight. "Damn, kid, you just found all kinds of ways to impress me while I was away, didn't you? Holy Shiva, Cloud, that's awesome. I want to see this! When's the race?"

"It's..." Cloud scanned the paper again, and blinked at the date. Doing some quick calculating in his head, he grimaced. "Tomorrow. So much for that. Dio ought to have known better than to try to send something time sensitive through the normal mail these days."

Glancing at Zack, he offered almost shyly, "I'll... enter one of the races after we've got this mess sorted out, if you still want to see me race." He hadn't expected Zack to be so impressed. It wasn't like _he_ was responsible for winning the races; the birds had done all the work. Hells, Tifa and even Cid had taken a few turns at racing, when he'd been tired or distracted.

"Tomorrow, huh?" Tifa chewed her lip thoughtfully. "I bet he's got at least one working airship. If you called him, he'd probably send it to pick you and Karasu up and bring you there. You could make it."

"Are you nuts?" Cloud asked, frowning at her. "I can't go haring off to compete in a chocobo race, Tifa."

"Why not?" she wanted to know. "And don't say 'Sephiroth'," she headed off the objection before he could even open his mouth. "We've already all agreed that there's not much you can do about him until we either hear back about Hojo's notes, or I get back from the crater with more information. Going to a race would get your mind off it, so you're not just sitting around here brooding." She grinned wryly. "Take Kinya with you as well, that way you can get back quickly if he pulls something and you need to return in a hurry."

"But...!" Cloud protested, unable to come up with a coherent reason why it was a bad idea that didn't involve Sephiroth in some way. He was relatively certain Sephiroth wouldn't be around to menace the remains of Midgar as long as Zack was with him, but turning the bastard loose on Costa del Sol didn't seem like a good idea either. And even if there wasn't anything he could do to help matters at the moment, going off to have _fun_ seemed like a horrible betrayal. Of what, he wasn't quite sure, but that was what it felt like.

They'd been through more or less this same conversation once before, when the group of them had been running all over the world looking for powerful weapons and equipment to help them defeat Sephiroth in the crater. Breeding and racing the birds had felt wasteful, like he was squandering time he should have been devoting to something else. At least at that time, the end result had been that they'd acquired some unbelievably powerful materia, so it had been worth it after all. This would be purely frivolous.

"She's got a point," Zack cut in, leaning back against the bar and taking the colourful brochure from Tifa, looking over it again curiously. "We could both use a break, kid. Even in the middle of the worst of the war, Shinra still gave the troops leave. That's because they knew that forcing us to fight to the point of burn out would have left them with nobody capable of fighting. Tifa's right; there isn't anything useful we can do right now, so the best thing we _can_ do is take the chance to rest while we have it."

There wasn't much Cloud could say to argue against that, and the truth was that he knew Zack was right. They'd been pushed to their limits in the crater, and they'd be days recovering their reserves of energy and will. A true rest - if Sephiroth would let them have the respite - would do wonders for both of them.

"You just want to go to Costa del Sol," he accused his friend, but there was no heat behind his words. Zack just grinned.

"Who wouldn't?" the ex-SOLDIER said with a wistful sigh. "Warm weather, bright sun, beautiful beaches, and lots of pretty girls running around in tiny bikinis. What more could any man ask for?" Of course, being on the beach to appreciate said pretty girls would probably mean being next to _Cloud_ in a swimsuit, and just the thought of that was more temptation than was probably wise. Since that ill-considered kiss in the caves, he'd been having the worst time trying to keep his hands off Cloud. He'd been trying to keep his distance to avoid the temptation, but it was difficult.

He needed to get over that, though. Preferably before his skittishness convinced Cloud that Zack didn't want to be around him at all, if it hadn't already. And it was never going to get better if he didn't force himself to work through it, he'd learned that much in dealing with his crush on Sephiroth.

"C'mon, you know you want to go too," he teased, reaching out to ruffle the blond's hair. He was proud of himself when he was able to keep the gesture entirely platonic, and his voice didn't give anything away. "Admit it, you're dying to race, I can see it in your eyes."

Thrilled by the return of the familiar gesture, Cloud didn't even try to dodge or retaliate. He'd have agreed to a lot more than just a visit to Costa del Sol if it was going to get Zack to stop avoiding even the slightest contact with him. "All right, all right," he capitulated with feigned ill-grace. "I'll call Dio and see if he still wants me. And we can stay in the villa, so we won't have to worry about accommodations."

"You have a _villa_ in _Costa del Sol_ ," Zack said in disbelief. "You're a world famous jockey, Dio invites you personally to attend a race, Reeve Tuesti is more than happy to do personal favours for you... you're starting to make me feel seriously inadequate here, Cloud. Hell, my only claim to fame is being a former 1st Class! You hang out with geniuses and millionaires!"

"Says the man whose best friend was Sephiroth," Cloud retorted without thinking. The moment the words were out of his mouth he winced and glanced at Tifa, but she only looked amused. If the mention of Sephiroth had upset her, it didn't show.

"Hey, you spent nearly as much time with him as I did," Zack countered with a grin. "And I know for a fact he considered you a friend. I don't know that he was my _best_ friend, though. A close one, definitely, but arguably not the closest."

"Then who was?" Cloud asked, frowning. "Aerith?" He'd thought their relationship was a bit more casual than that, but he could have been wrong. He certainly couldn't think of anyone else Zack had spent any of his time off with.

"No," Zack shook his head. Seeing that Cloud honestly had no idea who he meant, he rolled his eyes and glanced at Tifa with a 'what can you do with him?' expression. The corners of her lips twitched, and she shrugged. Cloud still looked bewildered, and Zack couldn't resist. He reached over and smacked the younger man on the back of the head.

"Ow!" Cloud batted his hand away and glared at him, though the response had been more a matter of reflex than a true reaction to pain. "What the hell was that for?"

"It was _you_ , dumbass," Zack informed him with fond exasperation. "Granted, I might have been a bit too much of a mentor figure to you back then for us to have really qualified as best friends, but in a lot of ways I was much closer to you than Sephiroth. You're certainly my best friend now!"

Trying not to show just how much that assurance meant to him, Cloud punched his friend in the shoulder in retaliation for the earlier blow. "Anyway, it's not relevant," he muttered, hoping his face wasn't as red as it felt like it might be. "My _point_ was that you've been close to some pretty famous people yourself. And you _were_ the rising star of the SOLDIERs, that counts for something. Civilians might not have known you the way they knew Sephiroth, but sure as hell everyone in Shinra did."

Seeing the way Cloud's eyes had lit up at Zack's words, Tifa swallowed. It was getting harder to believe in Zack's reassurances that there was nothing between him and Cloud. Not when Cloud looked at her more and more like a sister, and when one word or gesture from Zack could make him shine brighter than any mako fountain. There was nothing Tifa detested more than giving up, but this was starting to look like a battle she couldn't win.

Especially since she was about to send them off to a resort paradise together. All things considered, that practically _was_ a gesture of surrender. And maybe part of her didn't want to win, when it made Cloud so obviously happy to be around Zack.

"If you're going to go, you'd better get a move on," she said pragmatically, refusing to let herself think about it too deeply. If she thought about it she'd get upset, and maybe say or do something she'd regret later. More than anything, she didn't want to end up damaging her friendship with Cloud and becoming nothing more than 'that annoying ex-girlfriend'.

"Man, this is going to be awesome," Zack enthused, his eyes alight with glee as he considered the possibilities. He hadn't been to Costa del Sol more than a few times, and he'd always been on duty and unable to really enjoy the resort's amenities. A rest _would_ do them good, especially if they were able to get their minds off the mess with Sephiroth for a while. He really did want to see Cloud in a chocobo race, too.

And maybe, if he was very lucky, he'd meet a pretty girl on the beach to work out his frustrations with. If he found an outlet for his long-denied needs, the growing desire he felt for his best friend might fade to something manageable again. Then maybe they'd be able to get themselves back on an even footing again, because the continued awkwardness between them was really starting to wear on Zack. He hadn't realized just how much his close and easy friendship with Cloud meant to him until it had been strained.

Watching Zack, Cloud couldn't help but smile in response to his friend's obvious enthusiasm. He was like a little kid opening his birthday presents when he got excited about something, and it was hard not to get caught up in it with him.

"We should go get our stuff organized," he suggested, pushing away from the wall. "I need to call the farm and have them get Karasu ready, if Dio says he can send a ship for us."

"I can pack our crap up," Zack offered. "Unless there's anything specific you need that I wouldn't think to bring?" Cloud shook his head, and Zack nodded. "Good. You make the calls, then, and I'll get everything ready. Tifa, you take care of yourself, hear me? Don't take any risks you don't have to. Losing you isn't going to do us any good."

"I'll be careful," she promised him with a genuine smile. Whatever else might be true about the dynamics between the three of them, she honestly liked Zack. It was hard not to, really. It wasn't difficult to see why Cloud, lonely and miserable in Shinra's forces, would have been so drawn to the charming and vibrant SOLDIER.

Reaching out, she put a hand on Cloud's arm and raised an eyebrow at him, asking him to hang back for a moment so she could speak with him. He blinked at her, then shrugged and glanced at Zack. "I'll meet you back at the church," he told his friend. "Can you maybe stop in and check on Kinya on your way? I don't want to take her out if she's not at least mostly recovered from our trip to the crater."

"Will do," Zack acknowledged and tossed them both a jaunty salute. "Try not to get too... involved, and don't forget about actually making those calls, okay?" He winked at Cloud, who sputtered when he realized what his friend was implying.

Zack just laughed and strode out, leaving Cloud and Tifa behind. A part of him was seriously tempted to double back silently and listen to what they said, but he shoved aside the impulse as being beneath him. Whatever would be, would be. And frankly, what happened between them was none of his damn business.

Back in the bar, Cloud and Tifa stood unmoving for a long moment. Feeling a little uncertain, Cloud looked down at her. Tifa had been his first crush, and was still easily one of the most important people in his life. He'd thought, once, that making a new life with her would be what he wanted to spend the rest of his life doing. But things hadn't been as simple as he'd hoped, and now he wasn't sure _what_ he wanted. All he was certain of was that he didn't want to hurt her.

"Tifa..." he started awkwardly, and she shook her head. Lifting up on her tiptoes, she kissed him firmly to hush him. Cloud allowed the contact and even wrapped his arms around her, closing his eyes as he held her and kissed her back.

When she pulled away, he opened his eyes again and looked at her with a curious expression. Tifa gave him a smile that hopefully wasn't as brittle as it felt like it was. "Just... be happy, Cloud," she murmured, stroking his cheek with her fingers. "And remember, no matter what, I love you."

"I... love you too," he replied hesitantly, the words never coming easily to him but no less heartfelt for their difficulty. He _did_ love her, he just wasn't sure whether the form of that love was what he had always thought it would be. And what was she saying? It felt like she was trying to tell him something, but he wasn't sure if it was that she was saying she understood his feelings for Zack, or if she was reminding him that he would be hurting her if he left her.

"I know," Tifa said with a sigh, and she had to be content with that. He didn't say it often, and it was nice to hear it, but this time it felt less like an affirmation and more like the beginning of a farewell. She swallowed hard, and hoped she was at least managing to keep the worst of her emotions out of her expression.

Gently she tugged herself free of his embrace. "Now, scat," she commanded, pointing to the door. She was grateful that her voice came out level and unforced. "You've got a lot of work to do. And I want you to enjoy yourself and _rest_ , not spend the whole time brooding and worrying about Sephiroth, all right?"

"I'll do my best," he agreed. He still wasn't sure just what was going on, but he sensed that trying to stick around and fix things wasn't the right thing to do. "Be careful," he echoed Zack's earlier warning. If anything happened to her up there, especially if he was off having fun at the time, he would never forgive himself.

"I will," she nodded. He looked at her for a moment longer, then finally turned and headed out of the bar. Watching him go, Tifa smiled grimly to herself. If they got back from Costa del Sol and nothing had happened between the two men, maybe she could finally put to rest her worries that she would lose Cloud to Zack.

And if something _did_ happen... well, she'd deal with that then. First she had to go do her part to make sure that any of them would even have the _chance_ to worry about something as frivolous as a romantic relationship. Because if Sephiroth had his way, Tifa knew that would be the last thing on their minds.


	14. Chapter 14

Stepping down off the airship's ramp, Cloud paused as the warmth of the sun hit him with the force of a Fire3 spell. The difference between the cold, perpetually grey weather around Edge and the humid, tropical warmth of Costa del Sol was so marked that it was hard to believe they were at almost exactly the same latitude.

The little resort town had been mostly spared by the ravages of the battle between Holy and Meteor, and was easily the nicest remaining city on the planet. Cloud had been here a few times delivering mail and packages, but he'd never allowed himself to stay and enjoy it.

"Kweh!" Karasu protested the halt, flapping his wings and shifting from foot to foot. Like most chocobo he didn't really like travelling by airship, hating the close confines of the stall and the inability to go running whenever he felt like it.

"Yeah, sorry," Cloud murmured, stroking his neck soothingly before gathering up the reins and moving forward again.

"I guess some things _do_ change," Zack said in bemusement, following behind his friend with Kinya at his side. The gold was still visibly weary from their trip to the crater, but the warm sun made her perk up and fluff her feathers eagerly.

"What do you mean?" Cloud asked, confused. He surveyed what was visible of the town, but it looked exactly as he remembered it always looking. When he'd first run away to Midgar to try to join SOLDIER, he'd made the crossing from Costa del Sol to Junon and the town had looked just the same then as it did now.

"You," Zack told him, smiling in amusement at Cloud's obvious confusion. "Time was, you'd have been staggering off that ship, swearing you were never letting me drag you onto a ship again. You didn't so much as turn green."

"Oh, _that_." Cloud flushed. "Thinking I was essentially you for so long had a few nice side effects. _You_ never got motion sick, after all. I still get a little nauseous if the weather is really turbulent or the waves are bad, but I just ignore it."

"I always told you it was mostly in your head," Zack said, reaching to ruffle his hair. Cloud ducked out from under the touch, threatening to retaliate, but pulled up short when Karasu warked irritably.

"I guess we'd better get them to the stables," he said with an apologetic pat to the big black's shoulder. "If he's going to race tonight, he needs a chance to rest and recover from the flight first."

Unfortunately Dio hadn't been able to send a ship until that morning, so they'd just taken the bike out to the chocobo farm and let Kinya run along unburdened behind them. Zack had been delighted by all the different chocobo that Cloud had stabled there, almost none of them the regular yellow colour.

"Then what, hit the beach?" Zack asked. He could smell the ocean, the unique mix of salt and fish that made brine. The sun was warm, and even here on the landing pad there was golden sand scattered over the pavement in little drifts at the edges. Gulls cried from the air above, and there were palm trees everywhere.

"You can if you want," Cloud shrugged. "I'm going to look over the track, try to get a sense of what we'll be running over. Joe's probably been here for days, and Teioh is fast enough that misjudging the terrain even a little could mean the difference between winning and losing."

It had just occurred to him that if Zack stayed true to form, going to the beach with him would mean watching him flirt with every girl in a half-mile radius, and Cloud wasn't really sure how well he would take that. Just the thought made him horribly jealous, no matter how much he told himself he had no claim on his friend. Worse, since Zack _didn't_ have a girlfriend waiting back home there was nothing to keep the former SOLDIER from following through on his flirting with a willing girl, and Cloud _knew_ he didn't want to see that.

Even if it might be the best thing that could happen, for both of them. Zack focusing his attention elsewhere would effectively solve Cloud's quandary for him.

"Workaholic," Zack teased him lightly. "You just don't know how to relax and have fun, do you? I swear, you're worse now than you used to be, and that's saying something. I'll let you get away with it for now since I want to see you win this race, but once it's done I'm dragging you out with me and making you relax by force if necessary."

"We'll see," Cloud replied, smiling slightly at the threat. "Look, why don't you go on ahead? I can take the birds from here. I can tell you're itching to get to the water."

"You sure?" Zack raised an eyebrow at him, and Cloud nodded. "All right, then. I'll meet you by the track before the race starts, if I don't see you before then." Handing over Kinya's reins, Zack stood and watched as his friend led the birds towards the gaudy, glittering sign that marked the entrance to the new Silver Oasis entertainment park.

Once Cloud was out of sight, Zack sighed and turned to head for the beach. The first thing he did once he hit the beach was to stop and pull off his long-sleeved shirt and pants, revealing the shorts he'd worn beneath. He didn't know where this villa of Cloud's was, so he couldn't actually go swimming, but he wanted to at least wade through the water. Stuffing the clothes into the duffle bag he'd brought and slinging it and his boots over his shoulder, Zack sauntered out onto the hot sand.

The second thing he did was pause to buy a cheap pair of sunglasses, to hide the telltale glow of his eyes. In the bright sunlight it was probably barely noticeable even if you knew what you were looking for, but Cloud had warned him and Zack had seen for himself that SOLDIERs weren't always welcome everywhere anymore. Besides, even at the height of Shinra's popularity, normal people had often been nervous around SOLDIERs. Zack wanted to get his mind off the mess with Cloud, and the best way to do that would be to flirt with some pretty girls. That would be a hell of a lot easier to do if they weren't shying away from him because of his eyes.

The pretty girls were certainly easy enough to find; they were everywhere on the beach, swimming or playing beach ball or stretched out to tan. Many of them had equally handsome guys with them, and Zack didn't even bother to try his luck with those ones, but there were plenty who were unaccompanied or with a group of other girls.

With the wind mussing his hair and the sea spray scattering droplets of water over his bare chest, Zack knew he looked damned good. Weeks of work with Cloud had put muscle back on his frame, and if he wasn't as golden tanned as he'd once been he wasn't a sickly white anymore either. Apparently the girls agreed, because within minutes of him starting to walk along the water's edge he had no less than three companions, and others were already looking him over with interest.

To his surprise, though, he found he couldn't get his heart into the flirting. It was fun, flirting always was, but he couldn't make himself take it seriously. The girls were gorgeous, the atmosphere was perfect for picking up a companion - and all Zack could think was that it was a shame that Cloud wasn't there so they could surf or play beach ball together.

Though he kept laughing and chatting with the girls, inwardly Zack was groaning and mentally smacking himself. He was in _so_ much trouble, if he was surrounded by pretty, willing girls and all he could think about was his best friend. The kiss in the crater and the awkwardness that had ensued had been about lust, and lust he could deal with. But this was something skirting perilously close to love, and he hadn't even realized it had been building inside him until he was slapped in the face with it. That was the problem with falling for a friend. You didn't see it coming, it just sort of crept up on you when you weren't looking.

And he had no idea what he was going to do about it. He could probably make a move on Cloud and have it be reciprocated; the younger man's crush on him had faded with time and proximity as Zack had hoped, but that kiss in the crater showed that Cloud wasn't any more oblivious to Zack than Zack was to him. On the other hand, Cloud had been consistently skittish with Tifa any time emotions or commitment got involved, and Zack had no real reason to think the blond would behave any differently with him. The last thing he wanted was to drive Cloud off, especially right now when they had this mess with Sephiroth to deal with.

If he was being honest with himself, though, Zack had to admit his real reason for holding back was fear. With Aerith, things had sort of just naturally fallen into place for them, and it had never gotten too serious even at the height of their relationship. But Cloud was his best friend, and that was the sort of thing that could be seriously fucked up by a failed attempt at a relationship. And other than Aerith, Zack had never been in a situation where any significant part of his heart was on the line. He suddenly had a great deal more sympathy for the guys in his unit who had been nerve-wracked over the idea of approaching the girls they fancied. It was a lot easier to be brave and casually charming when you weren't courting any real rejection.

One way or another, he had to sort this out soon. There was Tifa to consider too; Zack had no desire to hurt her, and sending Cloud mixed signals could easily do that. For the moment, though, he resolved to do his best to put it out of his mind and just enjoy the warm sun and pleasant company. Maybe he would even succeed in finding someone interesting enough to distract him from the feelings he hadn't realized he had for Cloud.

After a couple of hours without things going beyond light flirting - much to the obvious disappointment of some of the more aggressive girls - Zack finally excused himself by saying that he was supposed to meet a friend before the race. It was even true, though he was sure the girls thought he was feeding them a line. They pouted coquettishly at him and promised to be on the beach tomorrow if he was looking for company again, and at last he managed to extract himself from their midst.

He found Cloud sitting at the crest of a hill overlooking part of the track, one leg pulled up to his chest and his chin resting on his knee. The blond had been there for some time, thinking hard and trying to put himself into the right frame of mind for the race.

It hadn't been easy. He had a lot on his mind, to say the least. Any time he managed to put Sephiroth out of his thoughts, he went straight back to contemplating the mess that was his current relationship with Zack. And thoughts of Zack eventually led him back to his fear of what would happen if he didn't find a way to force Sephiroth out of his friend's mind, so that brought him right back to square one.

By the time Zack found him, though, he'd managed to put most of it out of his active thoughts, at least. He'd been just listening to the sound of the early evening breeze whispering over the scrub grass and sand of the dunes, and to the distant roar and crash of the surf on the beach. It helped; he felt more peaceful than he had since they'd first realized that Sephiroth was rearing his head again.

"Hey," he said as Zack approached, the word both an acknowledgement and an invitation. He didn't take his eyes off the track just yet, not wanting to give up the sense of peace he'd found.

"Hey," Zack replied. "The races start soon, you know. Yours is last, but you should probably be going to change and get ready." Despite his words, however, he accepted the tacit invitation and flung himself down to sprawl over the sand next to Cloud.

Glancing at his friend from the corner of his eyes, Cloud attempted to tell himself that he wasn't relieved. If Zack had gotten laid, he wasn't showing any signs of it; he was missing that sense of relaxation, the loss of tension that was visible in small ways if you knew what you were looking for. He smelled like sun and seawater, sand and salt, nothing more.

"No luck with the ladies?" he asked, making a joke out of it but hoping he was right.

Rubbing a hand through his hair, Zack gave his friend a sheepish grin. "Nah. Wasn't really trying. Flirted plenty, but... they all seem kind of shallow, you know?" He shrugged. "I guess, after everything we've been through, most peoples' lives and concerns seem sort of empty to me. Doesn't help that I was spoiled by Aerith. I'm not really interested in flings and one night stands, and I don't really have the time, energy or inclination to pursue anything deeper than that right now. Maybe after we get this whole mess with Sephiroth sorted out." And after he'd dealt with his growing feelings for Cloud, he added privately.

Trying not to be visibly pleased to hear that he wasn't going to have to deal with the idea of Zack taking a girl home with him for the night or something, Cloud nodded. "Yeah, I understand," he agreed. "I'm lucky to have Tifa." Even if he wasn't sure just where he stood with her - or where he wanted to stand with her.

Doing his best to put those thoughts out of his mind, he stood and dusted the sand off his pants. "I should get ready. I talked to Dio, there's a spot for you in the VIP section of the stands. He's got cameras and video screens set up, so you should be able to see the whole race, and you'll be sitting right at the start and finish line."

"Sounds awesome," Zack said with genuine enthusiasm as he stood as well. He really was looking forward to seeing this race, even if he still couldn't quite picture Cloud as a world-famous chocobo jockey. "I'll cheer so loud you'll hear me from all the way on the other side of the track."

"I don't doubt it," Cloud agreed with a small smile. "Zack..." Hesitating, he searched his friend's face, not even sure what he was looking for.

"What?" Zack tilted his head curiously, looking back at him. He was suddenly a little too aware of how close they were standing, and the way the blowing wind made strands of Cloud's bright hair drift over his face, catching on his lips. Swallowing, Zack broke eye contact and crossed his arms over his chest, putting a bit of mental distance between them. He was in _so_ much trouble.

Seeing that, Cloud's smile grew. Looked like his suspicions had been right after all. Now he just needed to decided what he was going to do about it.

But first, he had a race to win. "Nothing," he replied, shaking his head and offering his hand. "Wish me luck?"

That much, at least, Zack could do. Gripping Cloud's wrist firmly, he grinned as the younger man closed his fingers over Zack's wrist as well. "You don't need it, but good luck," he encouraged the blond. "Go show them why SOLDIERs kick ass, kid."

Nodding, Cloud squeezed Zack's arm one more time before breaking the grip. "I'll watch for you at the finish line," he promised. And once the race was over... well, then he would see. Breaking into a jog, Cloud headed for the stables and left the hill - and Zack - behind.

One thing Cloud hadn't liked about Gold Saucer and still didn't like now was that he wasn't the one getting Karasu ready to race. The track attendants handled the birds, and the jockeys didn't see them until they mounted up at the starting line. Supposedly it kept the jockeys honest, not allowing them a chance to slip their bird any drugs or alter the weights on their saddles, but Cloud had long suspected that the track attendants were probably susceptible to bribes. Not tonight, though. Dio had gone all out on security measures, not wanting anyone to be able to claim the match had involved cheating.

So instead of saddling Karasu and warming him up, Cloud exchanged innocuous greetings with Joe as they both dressed in their racing silks. At least they didn't have to make small talk with any of the other jockeys who were riding in the earlier races; as the premier event, they got their own tiny room.

The nervous energy of the race was starting to rise in Cloud's system, making his nerves sing the same way they did when he went into battle. Already his enhanced reflexes were kicking in, and everything seemed to be moving just a little bit slower than usual as his body shifted to what he thought of as battle mode.

The change in perspective made the time drag on unbearably. Now Cloud knew why Zack had forever been pacing or doing exercises before missions or on long trips; it was an attempt to keep the battle tension from building up to the point where it would do more harm than good while the minutes ticked by at an excruciatingly slow pace.

At last a race official poked her head into the room to tell them it was time. Cloud and Joe shook themselves out of their respective pre-race meditations, nodded once at each other, and headed out to the track.

Karasu and Teioh were saddled and waiting off to one side, and Cloud moved to take his bird's reins from the attendant. The two blacks were warking at each other and ruffling their feathers in threat display; they knew they were going to be competing against each other, and they had their own sort of pride. Thankfully the attendants had known enough to keep them well separated, so there hadn't been any fights before the race even started.

Swinging himself up into the saddle, Cloud settled himself into place before the bird's big wings and pulled his goggles down over his eyes. His racing silks, blue trimmed with gold, shone under the bright lights that had been set up over the track. Glancing up into the stands, he searched for Zack's familiar face. It didn't take him long to spot the older man, standing at a nearby rail instead of sitting in the seat that had been reserved for him.

Seeing Cloud looking at him, Zack grinned and waved a blue and gold pennant he'd bought for five gil from one of the concession stands, shouting his encouragement. He knew Cloud probably wouldn't be able to hear him over the general roar of the crowd, which had increased drastically the moment the two jockeys appeared, but the sentiment would be appreciated nonetheless.

Waving to show that he'd seen Zack, Cloud gave his friend a thumbs-up and turned his attention back to the track. Karasu was shifting impatiently from foot to foot, straining his head against the reins in the direction of the starting line. He was eager to be off, bored after such a long stretch of inactivity at the farm.

Teioh was prancing in place, his head held high and playing up to the crowd. The older black had always been a crowd pleaser, and Cloud had to smile at the sight of him. Joe was letting him have his head for the most part, though he kept the bird from wearing himself out.

There was a warning buzz, and the light in front of the starting line turned on, shining bright red. That was the signal for the racers to move their birds into position, and Cloud eased up on the reins as he nudged Karasu in the direction of their appointed spot. Once inside the familiar archway the bird settled down and dug his feet into the dirt to give himself a good start, head down and bright eyes fixed on the light that would turn to green to start the race.

As the nominal favourite Joe had the inside lane to start, but for such a long race it didn't really matter. The course meandered in both directions; the only time the inside track would matter would be at the end in a close finish. Teioh's head was up, but Cloud knew better than to think the seemingly casual pose meant the bird wasn't ready to run. Joe liked to hold back at the beginning, letting his opponents wear their birds out before putting on a burst of speed and passing them at the end. Teioh actually didn't run as well if he was out in front and the finish line wasn't in sight, Cloud knew from experience.

The warning flag went up, and Cloud rose in the saddle so he was balanced in the stirrups with his weight centred over the base of Karasu's neck. That allowed the bird to use his wings for steering and balance, and cut down on the drag of the wind resistance over Cloud as he hunched in on himself.

The big black tensed beneath Cloud as the light changed to yellow, and the moment it turned green Karasu burst out of the starting gate in a sprint. Cloud let him have his head, knowing that fighting the black to try to hold him back at the beginning would only wear them both out. Dimly he was aware of the excited roar of the crowd, and the droning of the announcer over the loudspeaker, but he tuned all the external noise out. The only thing he cared about was the feel of Karasu running strong and fast beneath him, and the sound of Teioh following behind and to one side of them.

Karasu warked happily and stretched his legs, lengthening his gait further yet. The distance between the two birds inched wider as they swept around the first turn and moved out of direct line of sight of the stands, but Cloud knew better than to think it was any kind of true advantage. As they hit the second turn and he saw the first terrain change coming up, he finally reined Karasu in.

Warking a protest at the demand, Karasu reluctantly shortened his stride again. Now he was running instead of sprinting, the steady ground-eating lope that could let him cover long distances in amazingly short periods of time, but which didn't put too much strain on his endurance.

Dio no longer had access to the high-powered holographic projectors that had allowed him to create literally any environment for the track in Gold Saucer, but he'd risen admirably to the challenge. They left the hard-packed dirt of the track and entered what to all appearances seemed to be a natural trail in dense forest, left behind by some local grazer herds. The ground rose and fell unevenly, sodden and half-rotted leaves squelched under the bird's big feet, and bushes and trees provided unexpected obstacles in the path around every turn. In several places they had to scrape through close stands of saplings, the thin branches catching and tearing at feathers and clothing alike. In others, whole trees had fallen across the path, forcing them to jump or even climb over them.

On anything less than a green mountain chocobo, it would have been an impossible trail to follow. For a black, it was only mildly challenging. Karasu took the obstacles as if they had been designed to entertain him, not as if they were difficult in any way. Cloud clung to his back and let him pick his own way over the biggest trees, knowing the bird's instincts were far better for path-finding than Cloud's eyes would be.

Behind him he could hear Teioh crashing through the brush as well, closer than he would have liked. The other black wouldn't have any more trouble with the forest terrain than Karasu did, of course. In fact, in some ways he had it easier, because Karasu was breaking the trail for him. Grimacing, Cloud realized that taking the lead in this race hadn't necessarily been the best decision.

Still, they were a long way from the finish line yet. They broke out of the heavy forest and found themselves facing a steep incline, with rocks in sizes varying from gravel to boulders strewn over the path. Karasu spread his wings a bit for balance and charged up the hill, heading into the artificial mountain terrain without a pause. Now being in the lead was an advantage again, as bits of shale and other rocks spun out from under Karasu's feet and pelted down the trail towards Teioh.

Here they managed to put a bit more distance into their lead. The other black could handle the steep inclines and uncertain footing, of course, but Teioh was a racing bird and had never been anything else. Karasu, on the other hand, had travelled over _real_ mountains on numerous occasions, and been forced to dodge fiends and monsters while doing it. The difference was telling, and Cloud whooped breathlessly when they crested a ridge and he glanced back to see that Joe was falling behind.

Unfortunately the mountain terrain ended sooner than Cloud would have liked, turning into gentle foothills and then flattening out onto the sandy beach that was the natural terrain for this area. They were running alongside the ocean now, and the deep, dry sand made for even tougher footing than the shale had. Cloud was just grateful they weren't running over the larger sand dunes. Getting up the side of one of those constantly shifting hills would have been difficult even for a black, and the last thing he wanted was to lose the race because Karasu had injured himself in a fall.

Here the track was defined by low sandbanks lined with small lights, and Cloud stuck to the centre as it twisted and turned along the shore. Behind him he heard a sharp 'kweh!', and when he glanced back over his shoulder he spotted Teioh sprinting over the sand towards them. Joe was shortening the gap again, wanting to be closer before they hit the final stretch so it wouldn't be so difficult for Teioh to catch up and surpass them. Cloud tucked himself a little lower over Karasu's back, but didn't dare push the bird any faster. They would need every bit of speed and stamina that Karasu had left to deal with Teioh's final push.

When the path defined by the lights veered out _into_ the water, Cloud at first thought the track officials had made a mistake and put the course too close to the water before the tide had come in. After a moment he realized it had been deliberate; the lights were now dangling from little buoys anchored at intervals in the water. Grimacing, he drew a deep breath as Karasu plunged into the surf and the water splashed up around them.

The water itself wasn't much of a barrier; like his blue lake chocobo mother, Karasu's feathers were streamlined and covered with a thin coat of oil that let the water slide over them as easily as air, and his strong legs hardly seemed to notice the increased resistance. The spray that came up as he ran through the surf soaked Cloud thoroughly, however, and made it a little hard to breathe. Worse, there was just enough wind that the waves were fairly high, a factor they'd never had to deal with in the artificial water environment of the Gold Saucer.

Each time a wave crashed over them it pushed Karasu a little off track, and made him stumble. Then, as the water drew back again, the undertow tugged at the bird's legs and drew him back to the other side of the lit area. Water clung to the lenses of Cloud's goggles, obscuring his view until he cursed and reached up to rip them off, letting them drop behind them. His wet hair was plastered to his face, but he tossed it out of his eyes and squinted through the spray.

Cloud did his best to zigzag across the path in time with the rhythm of the waves, knowing that if they were pushed off the track it would mean an automatic disqualification. He could only hope that Joe was having just as much trouble; he didn't dare look back to see how the other jockey and bird were faring.

When the path finally veered back away from the water, Cloud breathed a sigh of relief that was matched almost comically by Karasu. Even the uncertain footing of the sand was a welcome change, and the hard packed dirt of the track that ran in front of the stands to the finish line was just ahead.

The crash and roar of the waves was so loud that Cloud almost didn't hear Teioh coming in time. The older bird had lowered his head and was sprinting all out again, wings tilted up and out for balance and catching just enough air to lift him slightly off the ground; not flying, but gliding in a way that let him put less of his weight down with each step. He came barreling up beside them, with Joe crouched low over his neck and shouting encouragement as they inched into the lead.

Loosing his hold on the reins, Cloud let Karasu have his head. They hit the hard dirt of the last part of the track, and Cloud could see the finish line ahead around one last gentle curve. Teioh had managed to manoeuvre himself into the inside track, which meant Karasu would have to run that little bit faster just to keep up with him.

Ducking his head and spreading his wings, Karasu gave it his all. Slowly Teioh stopped gaining ground, and for a few moments they ran side by side at exactly the same pace. Then Karasu started to pull ahead again, one fraction of an inch at a time.

Now it all came down to endurance; which bird had more of it, and which jockey had judged their bird best and paced him accordingly. Cloud didn't even try to direct Karasu, trusting his mount to know his limits in these final few moments. The black hated to lose even more than Cloud did, and not even Teioh could match him for sheer determination.

Seeing the two birds come into sight at the far side of the track, Zack tensed and tightened his grip on the railing. He'd been following the whole race on the screens, of course, but seeing it projected by a camera just wasn't the same as seeing it for yourself. They were still far enough away that all he could make out was two black blurs with smaller blobs of blue or green clinging to their backs, but that was enough. A few moments later others in the crowd, lacking a SOLDIER's enhanced senses, spotted the incoming birds and a roar went up.

Shouting and cheering with the rest of them even though he knew there was no way Cloud could hear him, Zack let himself get caught up in the atmosphere of enthusiasm. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had this much fun, and he could see why Cloud had said he missed racing. It must be a hundred times more thrilling to be down there on the track riding one of the birds.

Glancing up at the monitor that showed a close-up of the riders, he grinned to see the look of fierce focus and determination on Cloud's face. For a moment he was reminded of watching the younger man when they'd both been in Shinra and he'd been helping Cloud with his drills; the blond had looked just the same then, grimly determined to get it right no matter what it took, but secretly enjoying himself to the hilt under it all.

The birds were close enough now for him to make out details, and he could see they were running neck and neck. In the stark illumination of the track lights, it was hard to tell where one bird stopped and the other started in the tangle of wet black feathers. Cloud and Joe were both crouched low over the blacks' necks, and Zack could see his friend shouting encouragement to Karasu.

They swept over the finish line, running faster than Zack had ever seen any bird but Kinya go, and the crowd went wild. It was a photo finish, and it was a good thing Dio had found a way to get those cameras and screens because otherwise there might have been a riot. As it was, the picture taken at the moment the finish line was crossed flashed up on the screen before things got too crazy, and Zack strained to make out the details.

Karasu was ahead by half a beak, there was no mistaking it. Seconds later the scoreboard lit up, announcing that the judges agreed with what Zack was seeing. The two racers had overshot the finish line and let their birds run themselves out, and were now trotting back down the straightaway to see the results for themselves.

The moment Cloud saw Karasu's name listed at the top with a little crown beside it, he whooped with joy and pumped one fist in the air. Taking his cue from his rider, knowing he'd done well, Karasu hopped from foot to foot and flapped his wings happily despite his weariness, stretching his head up and warking loudly in triumph. Cloud bounced in the saddle, cheering himself hoarse with excitement.

Seeing the blond acting like a little kid who'd just been given the best birthday present in the whole world, Zack laughed out loud. That sort of unalloyed joy was rare to see on Cloud's face at the best of times, and it was priceless at the moment. Their eyes met, and Cloud grinned triumphantly at his friend.

Unable to contain himself, Zack vaulted easily over the railing and hit the ground running, reaching Karasu's side before the track security even realized what was happening. Cloud was already halfway out of the saddle; Zack pulled him the rest of the way down and tugged him into a victory embrace. They pounded on each other's shoulders and shouted into each other's ears, the words incoherent in the general roar of the crowd.

Pulling back far enough to wave off the concerned race officials who were heading towards them, Cloud felt like he was practically glowing. That was the best race he'd ever had, hands down. Spotting Joe walking Teioh out on the other side of the track, he raised his fist to acknowledge the other jockey. Joe nodded in return, offering a quick smile and a wave. It had been a good, close run, and they both knew it could have gone either way.

Laughing again, Cloud slung an arm over Zack's shoulder and let the older man do the same to him, so they were standing side by side with Karasu's reins in Cloud's hands. At that moment, worries like Sephiroth and even Tifa were the farthest thing from Cloud's mind.


	15. Chapter 15

By the time they finally escaped the Silver Oasis grounds and headed for the villa, Cloud was more than grateful to be away from the crowd. He enjoyed the thrill of the race and the joy of victory, but being trapped in a flurry of fans fawning over him had never been his favourite part of being a jockey.

Especially since his soaked racing silks had been more than a little uncomfortable, and as they'd dried they'd left behind a crust of salt that _itched_. At least having Zack with him to help run interference had made things a little more tolerable than usual.

For his part, Zack was just glad when Cloud had finally been able to change back into his casual clothes. The wet silk had clung to his friend's body in a completely indecent way, and Zack had been having difficulty keeping his attention off the blond. As it was, he was still fighting a sappy urge to reach over and brush Cloud's salt-crusted bangs back out of his blue eyes.

"So, what now?" the ex-SOLDIER asked cheerfully, firmly steering his thoughts away from anything to do with Cloud's body. "The night is young, but I bet you're dying for a shower."

"Just a little," Cloud agreed with a grimace, running one hand through the bedraggled spikes of his hair and feeling the grit of salt and sand left behind. "I was half afraid if I took the time to grab one in the locker room, Dio would manage to corner me afterwards with _more_ sponsors and investors and the like."

They were walking along the beach, headed towards the villa that Cloud and his friends had bought years ago. Looking out over the water, sparkling black and silver under the light of the moon, Cloud paused thoughtfully. "Then again," he said, a smile slowly curving his lips, "unlike you I didn't get to the beach today. The race doesn't count. There's more than enough moonlight for us to be able to see, and the villa has its own stretch of beach. Let's go swimming."

"It has its own beach?" Zack exclaimed, shaking his head. "I thought the only private beach in the area belonged to Shinra."

Smirking, Cloud shrugged and continued to walk towards the low-slung building that rested at the edge of the beach, away from the main part of town. "It used to belong to Shinra," he corrected his friend, trying not to sound too smug. "I don't know why Rufus decided to sell it when his father died, but it seemed like poetic justice to use it as our base of operations for this continent."

"You bought the _Shinra villa_?" Zack stopped short on the boardwalk and stared at his friend in shock. He was starting to get used to being startled by things Cloud had done during the years they'd been apart, but this... "Where the hell did you get the money?" Zack had never been stationed in Costa del Sol, the SOLDIERs were too valuable for what amounted to cushy guard duty, but he'd heard stories from the troops who had been. President Shinra had never been a man inclined to deny himself any sort of luxury or pleasure, and the villa in Costa del Sol had been his vacation getaway.

Grinning outright now, Cloud laughed at him. "Do you have any idea how much you could sell a mastered All materia for, back then?" he asked his friend. "Over a million gil. And we had several of them by the time we were done chasing around after Sephiroth and were waiting for a chance to get into the crater. Most of what Tifa and I had has gone into rebuilding Edge, but there was no point in trying to sell the villa after everything was over. There wasn't anyone with the sort of money available to buy it."

"Holy Shiva," Zack said, shaking his head in helpless awe. "You... that's just... damn." Impressed, he had to laugh as well. "Ifrit's balls, kid, you are something else."

"So, are we going swimming, or what?" Cloud asked, starting to walk again and forcing Zack to either move as well or be left behind. He didn't look back over his shoulder at his friend, not wanting Zack to see the speculative anticipation that was building in his expression. He'd made his decision, and he couldn't have asked for a better chance than what had been given to him right this moment... if only Zack would cooperate.

Well, Zack had been wishing earlier that Cloud had been with him on the beach. "Yeah, sure," he agreed. He'd been dying to get into the water since they'd arrived, and maybe it would help cool him off a little. "Sounds like fun. Last one in the water has to muck out Kinya's stall when we get back to Midgar?"

"You're on," Cloud agreed, and with no further warning he broke into a run, pounding down the boardwalk towards the villa and leaving Zack shouting laughing protests about cheating as the brunet raced behind him.

Cloud hit the door first, but he had to stop long enough to unlock it and that gave Zack a chance to catch up. They shouldered their way through, laughing and shoving and trying not to break anything. Once inside Cloud had a slight advantage in that he knew his way around, but Zack stayed right at his heels and didn't let him get more than a step ahead.

Lunging into the first of the bedrooms, Cloud grinned at Zack's dismayed look and slammed the door in his friend's face. It took him all of about thirty seconds to strip out of his clothes, find his swim shorts in his bag and pull them on, and he snatched up a towel and bolted for the back door of the villa.

Only to discover as he nearly tripped over Zack's bag that the older boy had turned his own tactic against him, stripping down right there in the hall rather than taking the extra few seconds to find the door to the second bedroom. Now Zack was the one in the lead, laughing at Cloud's shouted curse as they pelted through the hall.

The door out to the beach was another bottleneck, and they were side by side as they hit the still warm sand of the beach. Shoving at each other again and doing their best to trip or otherwise slow each other down, Cloud and Zack ran at a speed most people could never even dream of as they charged for the water.

Except for that inhuman speed, anyone watching them would have thought them an ordinary pair of friends, enjoying a break on the beach away from the stresses of life. Nobody would ever have guessed that they had been through hell and back, had seen more death and destruction in their short lives than any man should ever have to witness, and had the weight of the world on their shoulders.

At that moment, Cloud could almost forget all of that himself, lost in the thrill of victory from the race and the joy of horsing around with his best friend. This was how it _should_ have been; the two of them on leave, both SOLDIERs and an equal match for each other, teasing and laughing and generally having a blast.

Like the chocobo race it was a photo finish as they both splashed into an oncoming wave and dove under the water the moment it was deep enough. Of course they didn't have a photo to look at, so they had to settle for cheerfully arguing about who had won once they surfaced again.

"In your dreams, Strife!" Zack protested with a laugh when Cloud insisted that his foot had hit the water first. "Here, you want water? Have it!" He cupped his hands together under the water and sent a huge wave at his friend, swamping the blond.

Sputtering and coughing, Cloud splashed back at him and sparked a water fight of epic proportions. Anyone else would probably have been knocked under and half-drowned by the strength of the waves they sent at each other, but they were both having the time of their lives.

Finally a particularly large wave from Cloud knocked Zack back a staggering step, and it took the ex-SOLDIER a moment to clear the stinging saltwater from his eyes. When he looked around in preparation for splashing back, however, he discovered that he was to all appearances alone in the water. There was no trace of where Cloud had gone or even that he'd ever been there.

"Cloud?" Bracing himself against the push and pull of the waves, Zack looked around cautiously. The water here was clear all the way to the sandy bottom, but in the dark of night it was hard to see into it. The moonlight reflecting off the surface didn't help any, nor did the foam of the waves as they broke and raced around him. "Cloud!"

Zack wasn't worried; he'd never heard anything about monsters in the water off Costa del Sol, and anyway he was sure Cloud could handle himself at least well enough to leave some sign of where he'd gone. Which meant the younger man had gone under voluntarily, and that meant...

Even though he'd half expected it, the strong hand that wrapped suddenly around his ankle and yanked him off his feet caught him off guard. Zack flailed and went under, with just enough presence of mind to draw a deep breath before the water closed over his head.

He caught a brief glimpse of Cloud grinning at him through the dim water before the blond was twisting to swim away again. There was no way Zack was having any of _that_ ; pushing himself off the sandy bottom with one hand to change his momentum, Zack lashed out and managed to catch Cloud by the arm, hauling the younger man back towards him.

They wrestled for dominance under the water, surfacing just often enough to keep from drowning and otherwise not holding back at all. The resistance of the water was enough to keep them from really hurting each other with their punches and kicks, and the waves tumbled them this way and that as they struggled.

It was all Zack could do to keep from laughing and losing all his air. No one else had ever played with him the way Cloud did, and it was so much more fun now that they were equally strong that it didn't even bear comparing. And the fact that the blond had unbent enough to scuffle with him like this meant he'd managed to set aside his worries about Sephiroth and everything else long enough to unwind, which was exactly what Zack had been hoping for when he'd urged the trip to Costa del Sol in the first place.

Indeed, there was little on Cloud's mind at that moment beyond the struggle and half-guilty thoughts of how good Zack felt against him. Even that lingering guilt was fading as he threw himself into the fight, tangling arms and legs together and wondering if Zack was enjoying the contact half as much as he was.

The next time they surfaced Zack was standing further up the beach than Cloud was. The slight difference in depth, plus the inch or two in height that Zack still had on Cloud, gave the older boy enough of an advantage that he was able to drive the blond back down through the water and pin him briefly on the bottom.

For a moment their eyes met through the water, and something about Cloud's expression made Zack suddenly and intensely aware of how intimate the position they were in was. They were wrapped around each other like a pair of lovers, Zack pressed full length against Cloud as he pinned the younger man to the sand, and Zack felt his body react as everything he'd been trying to ignore came rushing in on him at once.

Seizing his opportunity, Cloud shifted his grip from Zack's shoulder to the back of his neck, and closed the distance between them in a fierce kiss. Startled and already off-balance, Zack found himself responding before it even occurred to him that he should be pulling away.

Just as in the crater, they lost themselves in the touch and taste of each other. This time, however, there wasn't a sense of fear and desperation overlying everything, only passion and need and longing that reached back over nearly a decade. The waves lifted them and tumbled them around, but they hardly noticed except for the way the motion made them rub against each other as they clung together.

Cloud was about as close to Heaven as it was possible to get outside of the Lifestream. This was like every teenaged fantasy he'd ever had about Zack come true, only better. Refusing to think about anything that might distract him from how good this felt, he did his best to put his feelings into the kiss and hoped Zack understood.

They broke apart only when the need to breathe was too urgent to ignore any longer, surfacing to gasp for air and stare at each other. The waves had pushed them up high enough onto the shore that Zack was able to keep his head above water just by staying on his hands and knees, and Cloud only had to push himself up on his elbows in the sand.

"Cloud..." Zack faltered, searching for words, torn between his conscience urging him to remind Cloud about Tifa and his body screaming at him to forget about everything but the feel of his friend beneath him.

"Was I wrong?" Cloud asked him hoarsely when Zack paused and didn't continue. "The way you kissed me in the cave, the way you've been looking at me lately; was I wrong? Do you want me as badly as I've always wanted you?"

"Hades, Cloud," Zack groaned and hung his head, resting their foreheads together as he squeezed his eyes shut and fought for control. His body was definitely winning out over his conscience. "I can't do this casually. Not with you," he warned the younger man. He shivered when a stronger wave hit them and pushed him against Cloud and he felt the blond's hard cock pressed against his thigh though their wet shorts.

"Good," Cloud replied fiercely, his eyes lighting with something close to triumph. "Because there's no way in hell I'd risk fucking up our friendship for a fling. All or nothing, Zack. Since when did you ever do anything halfway?"

That was exactly what Zack hadn't even dared to hope he might hear from Cloud, so notoriously skittish about emotions and commitment. "All or nothing," he agreed, his voice husky, as he shifted to kiss Cloud again. He'd worry about all the complications this was going to cause later. Right now, all he wanted was to feel his best friend pressed against him like this, knowing there was better yet to come.

Moaning into the kiss, Cloud clutched at him and rocked up against him. They were close enough in height that they were evenly matched, and the motion pressed their cocks together in a way that made them both groan. The thin, wet cotton of their shorts provided so little in the way of a barrier that it might as well not have been there at all, and the waves pushing and dragging over their bodies only made them even more sensitive to touch.

Zack could be patient when he needed to be; he'd never have succeeded in winning Cloud as a friend if he couldn't. But it didn't come naturally to him, and patience was absolutely the furthest thing from his mind at the moment. He shifted to brace his weight on one arm in the wet sand, reaching down with the other hand to fumble with the strings holding Cloud's shorts closed. When he couldn't immediately undo the knot, he made a frustrated noise and tugged sharply instead. The string and cloth parted with a wet tearing sound, leaving Cloud's hip bare to his exploring fingers.

Breaking off from the kiss to laugh breathlessly, Cloud threw his head back and arched up into the touch. "Those are my only swim shorts," he informed Zack in mock-indignation.

"So? It's a private beach, right?" Zack grinned back down at him, indigo eyes lit from behind by the glow of mako and looking both eerie and beautiful in the moonlight. Since the shorts were ruined anyway he didn't hesitate to gather the material in his fist again and pull it the rest of the way off Cloud's body. "What do you need them for?"

"Now you're overdressed," Cloud countered, moving to return the favour. If he didn't need shorts then neither did Zack, right? The material tore easily in his grasp, and when he let go the cotton was washed away from them by the next wave. Now, at last, they were bare against each other. Cloud felt hypersensitive, as if he could somehow be aware of every inch of Zack pressed up against him.

Shifting, Zack untangled their legs and moved so he was seated between Cloud's, their cocks rubbing together and making them both gasp. "Cloud," Zack groaned, his hand trailing down over the blond's hip and moving inwards until he could brush his fingers against the younger man's erection.

His mind was racing, trying to figure out what the best way would be to do this. They didn't have anything to use for lubrication, not unless one of them went back into the villa and searched for something, and there was no way in hell either of them was going to be willing to wait that long. Contrary to popular belief water wasn't much good, especially salt water, and he didn't really want to hurt the younger man. He wanted this to be something Cloud was willing to repeat, for one thing!

Pushing himself up against Zack's fingers, Cloud looked up into his friend's eyes and read some of his conflicted thoughts there. His eyes narrowed, and he decided it was time to remind Zack about a few essential points.

With no further warning, he tensed his muscles and pushed off against the sand as the next incoming wave lifted them, catching Zack completely by surprise and managing to flip their positions before the brunet even realized what was happening. Now Cloud was the one pinning Zack, his hands on the older man's shoulders and his thigh pressed against Zack's cock. Startled indigo eyes looked back up at him, and Cloud gave him a slightly feral grin.

"Stop thinking like I'm breakable," Cloud reminded him, his voice gruff with need. "I'm as tough as a SOLDIER, remember? One of these days I'm going to pound it into your head once and for all. You're not _that_ big, you're not going to hurt me that badly."

Pausing, he added thoughtfully, "And what makes you so sure you're going to be on top, anyway?"

Zack sucked in a sharp breath, startled more by that simple question than he had been by the move that reversed their positions. It wasn't that he was against the idea, though somehow he'd always ended up being the one on top in his infrequent encounters with other SOLDIERs. It was just... this was _Cloud_ , and every errant thought he'd ever had about the blond had very definitely involved Zack being the one in control. Largely because most of that time Cloud had been about two thirds his size and in total awe of him, and the idea of the little trooper taking Zack would have been somewhat laughable.

Now, though... Zack realized that Cloud was right, he'd still been thinking of the younger man as if he was that young, awestruck boy, even though the evidence to the contrary was right there in front of him. Here and now, there was no reason the encounter couldn't go either way. Shivering, he became conscious of a thrill running through him at the idea. No, he wouldn't really object if that was how it ended up going.

Not that he was going to let Cloud take control from him that easily. "Oh, yeah? What makes you think I won't be?" he challenged the blond, and shoved hard at the solid body pinning him to the sand.

They rolled, picking up sand and splashing through the surf as they resumed their earlier struggle for dominance with an entirely new intent. This time they weren't punching or kicking, more interested in the way their bodies slid against each other than in inflicting any damage. The struggle was interspersed with heated kisses and muttered curses with about equal frequency, and their eyes both shone bright with mako and desire.

In truth, until he'd uttered the words it had never occurred to Cloud that the encounter could end any other way, either. Certainly the very idea would have seemed ridiculous to him before, and old fantasies and habits of thinking were hard to shake. Now that he'd thought of it, though, he was determined that this first time at least would be with him on top, just to drive it home to Zack that things had changed between them.

The battle ended when Zack discovered - rather abruptly and somewhat to his dismay - that Cloud wasn't above using dirty tactics. The blond got his hand around Zack's balls and tugged gently, rubbing his thumb up over the base of the older man's cock, and this time when Cloud rolled into the dominant position Zack went still instead of fighting back.

"That's... hitting below the belt," Zack gasped, digging his hands into the sand and fighting the urge to jerk away. He knew Cloud wouldn't hurt him, but the implied threat made his heart beat faster. Or maybe that was just the intensity of sensation as Cloud rolled his balls between his fingers, playing with the loose skin. "Or something below the belt, anyway. Maybe not hitting."

"Right, because you've never resorted to dirty tricks to win a fight or an argument," Cloud retorted dryly, making Zack grin breathlessly up at him. "Do you yield, or not?" He tugged again, making Zack gasp and toss his head back, his eyes going half-closed but the glow in them growing stronger with need.

"Yeah, okay, I yield," Zack grated out, squirming helplessly under Cloud's touch. "You win this one. Next time..."

"Next time you can do whatever you want with me," Cloud promised him, leaning over to breathe the words directly into Zack's ear and making the older man shudder. "After that we can figure it out as we go along. But this one is mine."

Letting go at last, Cloud dropped his hand further and ran his fingers over the tight pucker of Zack's ass. He tried not to show how uncertain he felt; he knew the theory of what went where thanks to plenty of talk in the barracks, and he'd even learned somewhere along the way about how you were supposed to prepare your partner, but he'd never actually _done_ it. He'd already gone further with Zack as of this moment then he ever had with Tifa, and he desperately didn't want to screw this up.

No way in hell was he asking for help or guidance after claiming top like that, though. Surely it couldn't be _that_ hard to figure out what to do and when.

Zack had stopped fighting him, at least, lying back in the waves and the sand like some kind of beach sea god, the moonlight playing over his body and making the water on it gleam. Cloud slid one finger inside Zack's body, marvelling at how tight it was and trying not to think of how incredibly good that was going to feel around his cock. Zack would never let him live it down if he embarrassed himself by coming too early.

Panting and forcing himself to relax against the intrusion, Zack moaned at the odd sensation. It felt good in a weird way, though not really like he'd thought it would. There was a lot more to come, of course. It wasn't hard to figure out that Cloud was going slow because he was trying not to fumble his way through it, but Zack did his best to wordlessly encourage the younger man with little moans and gasps of need. Not that he needed to try very hard to produce them; indeed, it would have been damn hard to get himself to stay silent.

Letting go of his death grip on the sand with one hand, Zack waited for the water to wash the grit off his fingers and then wrapped them around Cloud's cock, retaliating in the only way he could. The blond made a needy noise and thrust into his hand, his finger curving inside Zack's body in response, and that made the brunet squirm against him.

The second finger was a little harder to get in, especially with Zack distracting him like that, but Cloud managed. He knew there was supposed to be something he could touch with his fingers that would make Zack see stars, and he wanted to find it. He was determined to make sure this was just as good for his friend as it was for him, and that was one sure way to do it.

It took him a few moments, but he knew when he'd found the right place. Zack gasped and tightened his hand, forgetting to actually stroke for a moment as he trembled under that touch. "Ramuh's beard, Cloud... do that again," he begged shamelessly, grinding down against Cloud's hand. Cloud obliged him, feeling a little smug as Zack made a helpless sound of longing and kept rocking back against his hand.

Carefully Cloud worked his fingers in and out, trying his best to stretch the muscle enough to take him. "Hey," Zack finally groaned, shuddering beneath him. "I'm not breakable either, you know."

Cloud didn't need to hear any more than that. "Right," he agreed hoarsely, withdrawing his fingers. Zack cried out and arched his back like he was trying to get the contact back, but Cloud was already moving to position his cock to replace his fingers.

For an endless moment their eyes locked, sky blue to indigo, and there was a flash of something indefinable between them. Cloud pressed forward, trying to take it slow but having to fight his own body and the way Zack kept rocking up into him.

Wincing as Cloud stretched him open, the salt in the water stinging slightly in the small tears that resulted, Zack was grateful to have a SOLDIER's tolerance for pain. Otherwise without lube or a lot more preparation this could have been really bad, and if he'd had to wait much longer he thought he might have gone insane.

As it was he still needed a moment to adjust once Cloud was all the way inside him, wrapping his arms around the younger man's shoulders to keep him in place. Cloud held as still as he could, ignoring the faint tremors that wracked his body as Zack squeezed down around his cock in the most incredible way.

"Zack," he groaned, lowering his head to lick at the side of his friend's neck. He tasted salt from the water and Zack's skin, an almost addicting combination.

"Yeah," Zack replied somewhat vaguely, tipping his head back to give Cloud better access. "Yeah, okay, go ahead."

Taking a deep breath, Cloud eased himself partway out of Zack's body, then thrust back in again. Zack made a noise somewhere between pain and intense pleasure, his fingers digging into Cloud's back. The second thrust was a little harder and faster, even though Cloud was trying to hold himself back, but that time Zack's responding noise was almost entirely need instead of pain.

"Do it," Zack urged him, looking up at him with burning heat in his eyes and arching up to encourage him. The next thrust was harder still, and Zack moaned as Cloud drove home inside him. Oh yeah, he definitely didn't mind if they did it this way sometimes, not if it was going to feel this good. Why hadn't he ever done this before?

It didn't matter now. All that mattered was the way Cloud felt inside him, and the way the water washed over him like a caress almost in time with Cloud's thrusts. Shifting so his legs were wrapped around the younger man's, Zack cried out when the change in angle made Cloud hit that spot inside him again. "Holy... nng. Cloud!"

Feeling a bit smug that he'd managed to wring such a sound out of Zack, Cloud smirked and thrust in again, angling himself a little deeper to make sure to hit the spot again. The new angle also ground Zack's cock in between their stomachs, and from the sounds of it the older man wasn't going to need much more stimulation than that.

Which was probably a good thing, because Cloud's arms were already shaking with the effort it was taking to hold himself back. Zack felt even better around his cock than he'd imagined, and just as he'd been afraid it was all he could do not to embarrass himself.

It was a bit difficult to maintain a steady rhythm because of the way the waves kept lifting them and pushing them against the sand, but neither of them really minded. Or rather, they were too far gone to care. Cloud growled into Zack's throat and thrust harder to compensate, and Zack arched up into every stroke with greedy little moans that drove Cloud wild.

In the end it was Cloud who broke first, but not by much. As his rhythm faltered and orgasm hit him hard, he fumbled one hand down between them to tug at Zack's cock, not wanting to leave the older man unsatisfied. That was all it took for Zack to hit the peak as well, convulsing around Cloud as they came hard together.

Panting, drenched in sweat where the water didn't touch them and covered in salt and sand, the two men lay entangled in the surf for long minutes after they'd finished. "Fuck," was Cloud's eventual succinct evaluation, and Zack started laughing.

"Yeah, that about covers it," he agreed, his voice a little unsteady still. Leaning up he kissed Cloud hard and fiercely, letting everything he was feeling at the moment come through in the embrace. Cloud returned it with interest, savouring the taste and feel of his best friend and a dream he'd never thought he would actually have.

When the kiss was over they separated with a groan, hauling themselves to their feet on limbs that felt like jelly. Zack winced slightly at the soreness he felt, but it wasn't anything a first-level Cure spell wouldn't fix. Or hell, given how fast SOLDIERs healed he could probably just wait it out and he'd be fine in the morning.

Well enough to retaliate and take Cloud up on that 'anything you want with me' offer, anyway. Grinning in anticipation and smug satisfaction, Zack slung an arm around the blond's shoulder. For once Cloud didn't even try to pull away or duck out from under the touch, just wrapping his arm around Zack's waist in turn.

"C'mon, let's hit the sack," Zack urged, tugging him towards the villa. "Or maybe the shower, then the sack. You wore me out, kid."

"Shower?" Cloud raised an eyebrow at him with an expression that shouldn't have held that much heat. Damn it, Zack thought ruefully, they weren't teenagers any more, much though part of him still felt like he _should_ be only eighteen.

"Don't give me that look," he retorted, shoving at the younger man. "There's no way you have any more energy than I do, after that race and what we just did."

Slowly, Cloud smiled at him, a predatory expression that would have looked completely out of place on him when he'd been a teenager, but which oddly suited him now. "Want to bet?" he asked, walking out from under Zack's arm when the brunet stopped to stare at him. "If you're tired, though..."

He sauntered off towards the villa, the moonlight highlighting the heavy muscles on his frame, his pale skin all but glowing and his blond hair shining damply. Suddenly sleep didn't feel all that urgent to Zack, and the potion was sounding like a better option with every moment that went by.

"Not that tired," Zack declared, and headed after him with a predatory grin of his own. Two could play at this game. And have a damn lot of fun doing it, too.


	16. Chapter 16

As much as Zack enjoyed being able to sleep in and laze about on the days when he didn't have to be up early, today he found himself reluctant to simply roll over and go back to sleep after waking the first time. It wasn't hard to figure out why, not when he had Cloud tucked up against him and a rare opportunity to see the younger man when he was sleeping.

It was a sight worth admiring; early morning sunlight shone through the windows, bathing the bed and its occupants. It turned Cloud into a golden version of himself, gilding his tanned skin and making his hair shine with auric brilliance. The lines of worry and wear were missing from his face, making him look his true age or maybe even younger. As he had that morning at Tifa's, Zack found himself tempted to wake the blond in the most pleasant way.

And why not? After what they'd done the night before, Zack could be certain beyond a doubt that Cloud would not only not object, he'd participate enthusiastically. The thought made him smile brightly, and his body stir with interest.

First, though, there was a rather urgent matter that needed to be taken care of. With a sigh of regret, Zack eased himself out from under Cloud and hauled himself out of the bed.

Returning from the bathroom, he paused as he caught sight of Cloud's phone where it had been carelessly dropped in their hasty race the night before. It was blinking, indicating that there was a message, and Zack grimaced as he realized they must have missed Tifa's check-in call the day before. And after he'd promised her he would make sure Cloud answered his phone!

Picking it up, he brought it with him back into the bedroom to be dealt with after he'd woken Cloud. To his disappointment however, the blond was already awake and sitting up in the bed, rubbing at his eyes with one hand as he yawned. He'd been startled to discover that Tifa's description of Cloud as an early riser had been an accurate one for the most part, but he'd hoped that the younger man was tired enough to sleep in for a while.

"Now that's cute," Zack commented, making Cloud blink at him sleepily.

"Cute?" Cloud's voice came out a little husky, and he gave Zack a look that was both disbelieving and heated. "After last night, the best description you can come up with for me is still cute? Obviously I need to try harder."

"You try any harder and I'll die of exhaustion," Zack chuckled, sliding back into the bed and tugging Cloud down to lie beside him again, the blond curled against his side with his head on Zack's shoulder. "I'd die happy, though. Here," the ex-SOLDIER added, offering the phone. "I think we missed Tifa's phone call."

Regarding the blinking red light sourly, Cloud winced. Tifa was something he'd been trying not to think about. He still wasn't sure exactly what she'd meant to say to him the last time he'd seen her, and he could feel guilt for 'cheating on her' eating away at the happiness being with Zack had created within him.

"Feeling guilty?" Zack guessed when he saw the expression on his friend's face. Cloud looked like he was half expecting the phone to jump up and bite him.

"Yeah," Cloud admitted, not seeing any reason to hide it. Zack could read him like a book, anyway. Reluctantly he reached out and took the phone from his friend, though he still didn't open it. "She said some things to me just before we left; I can't tell whether she was trying to remind me that we're supposed to be together, or saying she would understand if something like this happened."

Chewing on his lower lip, Zack debated whether to mention his own conversation with Tifa to the blond. "If it makes you feel any better, she and I talked about it as well, and she said she wouldn't be upset if you and I ended up together," he finally confessed. "Hurt, but not upset. At the time I told her she was worrying over nothing, but... well, I hadn't reckoned on _me_ falling for _you_ in the meantime."

"You _talked_ to her about it?" Cloud exclaimed, dismayed. "When? _Why_?"

"That first morning, sleeping at her place," Zack explained. "She walked in and found us curled together on the floor, and jumped to the wrong conclusion."

"So that's why you ran out of there," Cloud realized, sighing and rubbing at his eyes again. "I don't want to hurt her. And I do love her. Just... maybe not quite the way I thought I did." And definitely not enough to be willing to give up _this_ ; having Zack against him, knowing the older man was _his_... no, there wasn't much that could ever convince him to relinquish that.

"I don't want to hurt her either, but she's a big girl," Zack replied softly, running one hand through Cloud's silky hair. "And it's better to hurt her now and let her get over it than to drag things out if that's not really the way you feel about her, I guess." He tried not to feel grateful that Cloud had ended up with him instead of her after all, but it was hard not to. Not when Cloud was just about everything Zack had ever wanted in a lover, and a few things he hadn't known that he wanted.

"So, are you going to check the message or not?" he added, because there was no point in putting off the inevitable. "Besides, she might have called to say she needs us."

"Right." Flipping the phone open, Cloud hit the button that would let him get his messages, then entered the code when asked for it. He listened intently for a few minutes; all Zack could hear was the faint sound of Tifa's voice, he wasn't able to make out the words.

"Well?" he demanded when Cloud finally ended the call and closed the phone again.

"They're fine," the blond assured him, tossing the phone to land on his bag and shifting a little closer to Zack. "She said there's been no sign of Sephiroth, or anything else. But the caves are even more extensive than we thought, and it's probably going to take them a couple of days to get through it all, at the least."

"Better to be thorough about it than to have to wonder if they missed something," Zack agreed. "Well, at least Sephiroth is leaving them alone. And none of them should be drawn to the Lifestream the way we were, so they're safe on that count as well. I guess we can relax, as long as Seph doesn't pull something nasty in Midgar while we're gone."

Reminded of the other thing he'd been trying not to think about, his certainty that Sephiroth wouldn't show up anywhere that Zack wasn't, Cloud grunted his agreement and buried his face in Zack's shoulder. He prayed the others would find something in the caverns, because they were rapidly running out of options.

At least he hadn't had any nightmares last night, whether because Sephiroth had given it a rest or because he'd been just too worn out to dream. Hopefully that meant the bastard hadn't put in an appearance to terrorize the residents of Costa del Sol as well.

"So, what now?" Cloud asked. "Dio will send us back whenever we want, or we can even wait for Tifa and the others to be done and Cid can transport us back in the Sierra."

"I'm all for not going back to Midgar right away, unless we hear about something from the Turks," Zack immediately voted. There wasn't a doubt in his mind that it would be far more pleasant to spend the time here on a warm sunny beach, instead of cooped up in the dreary atmosphere of Edge. And there were fewer ghosts here to haunt them, either of them.

"Do you want to stick around here, then? Or," a thought occurred to Cloud, and he lifted his head. "Do you want to take the birds overland to Gongaga, maybe? I finally got around to writing your parents and telling them what had happened to you last year. Now I wish I hadn't."

"My parents?" Zack regarded him with some surprise. "You wrote my parents? Aw, damn," he grimaced as he realized the implications. "It must have just about crushed them to hear I was dead." He was their only child, and for all that he'd had his issues with his parents he would never, _ever_ wish that kind of suffering on them. They'd done their best for him, they just hadn't understood his determination to go out and _make_ something of himself as a SOLDIER. He felt guilty that it hadn't even occurred to him until that moment that he probably ought to let them know he was still alive. Even if Cloud hadn't written them, after so many years they'd surely just about given up hope.

"Yeah, I guess I'd better go visit them," he agreed. "You don't mind coming with me? It'll probably be all the usual sort of family crap, I don't doubt you'll end up feeling like a third wheel, but I could use the moral support."

Since he'd been half afraid Zack would say it was something he needed to do on his own, Cloud shook his head gratefully. "No, I don't mind," he assured his friend. "Today? Or later?"

"Might as well do it today," Zack decided. "If I put it off, with my luck something will come up and we'll get pulled back to Midgar, or up to the crater, and I'll lose the chance. There's no huge rush, though," he added with a sly smile, running his hand down from Cloud's hair and over the bare skin of the blond's back, making him shiver. "No reason we can't take the time to enjoy waking up."

That earned him a heated smile in return, and Zack was glad they'd woken up so early. As it was, he doubted they'd be on the road any time before noon.

* * *

On a normal chocobo the trip from Costa del Sol to Gongaga would probably have taken the better part of two days. On Karasu and Kinya, they were there just in time to catch a gorgeous sunset as the forest came into sight. Zack's slightly melancholy smile at the thought of seeing his hometown turned into a horrified gasp.

"What... what the hell _happened_?" he exclaimed, reining Karasu in and staring in shock and alarm at the ruins of the once-proud city. A huge section at the centre of the forest had been blown away, leaving bare ground for nearly a mile in all directions around the twisted remains of the city's reactor. Even though he'd seen the damage to Midgar for himself, Kalm and Costa del Sol had been so nearly untouched that it hadn't even occurred to Zack that his hometown might have suffered so badly.

Then again, Kalm and Costa del Sol had both relied on other nearby reactors for their power, they hadn't had any of their own. Were all of the reactor towns so decimated?

Kicking himself for not remembering that Zack wouldn't know about Gongaga's destruction, Cloud reined in beside him. "There was an accident in the reactor, during the time you and I were locked away in the labs," he explained, reaching out to touch his friend on the arm. "Apparently it overloaded and blew, with almost no warning. I'm sorry, I should have told you. I forgot you wouldn't know."

"Gods." Stunned, Zack just sat there and stared. Gongaga hadn't been a huge city, certainly not on Midgar or even Junon's level, but it hadn't been a tiny little hamlet either. They'd been one of the first places to notice the deadly blight that crept out from around the reactors as the area's mako was sucked up, as the trees and plants of the forest began to wither and die.

But this... this was beyond anything he'd imagined. He couldn't even begin to guess how many people must have died. He tried to grasp the idea that most of the people he'd known growing up were probably dead, and failed. War was one thing; he'd lost a lot of good friends in the mountains of Wutai, but that was different. You expected casualties in war. And he hadn't known enough people in Midgar for its destruction to hit him on a _truly_ personal level. Despite what he'd told Tifa that first day in Edge, apparently some part of his subconscious mind had still considered Gongaga 'home'.

"My parents," he said urgently, turning to Cloud with fear in his eyes. "You're sure they're both alive? How did you find them to write them, anyway?"

"I'm sure," Cloud hastily reassured the older man. "We ran into them when we were travelling through here, the whole group of us. When I told them I was a SOLDIER they asked if I knew you - but of course at that point I still didn't remember you existed. I told them I'd never heard of you. Unless something has happened to one of them since then, they're both still alive." Fervently he hoped no ill had befallen the elderly couple. He didn't think Zack would take it well if one of them was dead.

"Only one way to find out, I guess," the ex-SOLDIER said grimly, turning Karasu's head towards the road into the forest and kicking the bird to get him moving. "Let's go."

Once they passed beneath the trees the sight of the ruined reactor and remains of the city were blocked out, and Zack breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Here in the cool green light, listening to the touch-me frogs singing to each other in the underbrush, he could pretend that nothing had changed. "Still don't believe me that there are monsters around here that can turn you into a frog?" he asked Cloud, rallying his good cheer with an effort.

"No, I've been frogged a few times, I know they're real," Cloud admitted with a groan. It wasn't a pleasant experience, suddenly finding yourself a frog. "You have to admit it sounds like something that couldn't possibly be exist, though. You can't blame me for not believing you!"

"Nobody ever does, until they come to Gongaga and see it for themselves," Zack agreed with a soft chuckle. "I never could be sure if Aerith was the one person in the world who actually believed me, or if she was just humouring me."

"Who knows, with her?" Cloud shrugged, a little sad at the reminder. It must have been doubly difficult for the half-Cetra when they'd travelled through this area; not only would the injured forest have been crying out to her, but meeting Zack's parents had to have been a painful reminder for her. Especially since Cloud had continued to deny any knowledge of the man who had been his best friend.

They reached the graveyard, the rows of crosses and headstones laid out neatly by the path that led to the town, and Zack flinched. Carefully he kept himself from looking too closely, not wanting to see any names he recognized. He clung to Cloud's assurance that his parents had both survived the explosion, though he had to wonder what sort of lives they'd led afterwards.

As he'd more or less expected, when they finally reached the town - no longer a city by any stretch of the imagination - he didn't recognize a single thing. The wood and thatch huts were nothing like the buildings he remembered, though it was obvious that the survivors had done a good job of adapting themselves to their new circumstances.

"Which way?" he asked quietly, feeling odd that he had to ask for directions to his own parents' house. Cloud pointed, and they dismounted to lead their chocobo through the narrow streets.

The two of them drew a few curious looks as they walked, but if anyone recognized Zack they didn't say anything. And why should they? He'd left home when he was all of thirteen years old, and he hadn't been back until this moment. He resembled that gawky, awkward adolescent about as much as Cloud still looked the way he had when Zack had first met him. Dark hair and blue eyes were common in this region, and as far as he could recall he didn't strongly resemble either of his parents. There was no reason for anyone to know who he was just by looking.

Sensing Zack's introspective mood, Cloud said nothing as they approached the little hut where he remembered the older man's parents living. He hoped they were still there; if they'd moved, finding them could be difficult. "There," he said softly, nodding at the door. He held out a hand for Karasu's reins, and Zack handed them over willingly.

Staring at the plain wooden door, Zack tried to gather his nerve. "Ah, hell," he muttered, amused at himself despite how anxious he was. "I've faced down deadly dragons and Wutai ninja, and I'm scared to knock on my own front door."

"Going home is never easy," Cloud replied, touching Zack's arm again in a gesture of support. "It'll be okay."

Drawing a deep breath, Zack reached out and knocked sharply on the door. For a moment there was no sound beyond, and he was just debating whether to knock again when he heard a soft shuffle and the sound of a latch being drawn back.

The door opened to reveal an elderly woman with white hair, and Zack felt a flash of disappointment. His parents must have moved after all, or else something had happened to them. All four of his grandparents had died when he was small, and he didn't have any extended family.

"Yes? Can I help you?" the woman asked them somewhat suspiciously, one hand holding her shawl closed at her throat. She peered back and forth between Zack and Cloud, trying to get a good look at them in the lantern light spilling out of the doorway. "Oh!" She stared at Cloud, her eyes widening in recognition. "You! You're that SOLDIER boy, the one who wrote us about our..."

Realization hit Zack and the woman at the same moment, and they gaped at each other in equal amounts of shock, though for different reasons. "Zack?" she quavered, her voice shaking with age and emotions. "Oh gods, Zack, is that you?"

"Mom?" Zack's voice cracked on the word as well, and he swallowed hard. _This_ was his mother? His strong, vibrant mother, who had worn her few grey hairs with pride and who'd had more than enough energy to keep up with even as energetic a toddler as Zack had been?

"Zack!" she shrieked and let go of her shawl, flinging herself into his arms as she babbled and cried at the same time, rendering herself incomprehensible. He held her back automatically, careful of his strength; he was almost afraid he would break her in half if he so much as breathed on her hard.

Of course, he realized numbly. His mental image of his mother was of a woman in her late thirties, and it hadn't aged in all the years since. She would be into her fifties now, and after everything she'd been through it shouldn't have surprised him that she looked more like she was in her sixties. The explosion, spending so many years wondering what had become of him, only to be told that he'd died years before... that would age anyone before their time. And now that he was looking he could see hints of the woman he'd known in her face, especially her eyes.

"Hi, mom," he murmured, accepting that this was truly his mother and burying his face in her hair so she wouldn't see the tears in his eyes. "I'm home. Sorry it took me so long."

How strange it was, to be taller than she was! She'd still had at least half a foot on him when he'd left home, but now he was a full head taller than her. She felt delicate beneath his touch, even more so than most non-SOLDIERs did. She clung to him and cried, and he tried not to feel guilty for what she'd gone through. Most of it wasn't his fault, after all; he hadn't asked to be locked up in a lab and experimented on for years, and he hadn't dared to go anywhere near Gongaga when they'd been on the run for fear that Shinra would be waiting for him there.

"What's going on out here?" The deep masculine voice was less altered with age than his mother's had been, and Zack recognized it instantly. He looked up and found his father glaring out at them from the entrance, obviously nonplussed at the sight of his wife sobbing in a stranger's arms.

"Dad," Zack said, grateful that his voice didn't crack this time. "Dad, it's me. Zack."

"Zack?" His father looked understandably shocked, but to Zack's relief the shock was followed by disbelieving joy. He'd been half afraid the next reaction would be anger; he and his father hadn't always gotten along well, and when they'd never answered any of his letters he'd feared the man was too angry with him for abandoning them to want to speak to him.

If that had been true, though, it was obvious that having his son apparently return from the dead was enough to overcome whatever anger had been there. The older man moved forward and caught Zack in a tight embrace with Zack's mother between them, and then suddenly all three of them were laughing and crying and trying to talk at the same time.

Hanging back with the chocobo, Cloud was fairly certain they'd forgotten about his presence entirely. That was fine with him; as Zack had predicted, this wasn't the sort of thing he should be involved in as an outsider. It did raise a sharp ache in his chest as he thought of his last visit with his own mother, and he tried not to remember the sight of her broken and bleeding on the floor of their house as it burned down around her. He hadn't even been able to save her body.

Just because _he_ could never see his mother again didn't mean he begrudged Zack the chance, though. When the three showed no signs of breaking up after a minute or two, he wondered whether he should take the chocobo and go find the inn, leaving Zack to his family for the night after all.

Before he could make up his mind, however, Zack's mother pulled away from her son and wiped her eyes. "But how?" she asked, looking at Cloud. "Your letter said he'd died!"

"I thought he had," Cloud admitted gruffly, sorry for the pain he'd undoubtedly caused them in his ignorance. "I only just found him again. I was as shocked as you are."

"Why didn't you come home?" Zack's father demanded, and now some of the anger Zack had expected was there. "How could you leave your mother and I wondering all that time what had happened to you?"

"I... wasn't able to come back, or even contact you," Zack answered, choosing his words with care. His parents didn't need to know about all the horrors he'd gone through. "I was more or less comatose, and under close supervision. I nearly _did_ die. This is the first chance I've had to come home."

"And what about before that?" the man insisted. "I realize you had duties and responsibilities and couldn't visit whenever you wanted, but one letter in five years..."

"Wait, _one_ letter?" Zack interrupted him, frowning. "I wrote you guys like, every month! Every other month at the very least, even during the war. I... I kept hoping you'd eventually forgive me and write back, if I just kept trying," he admitted, somewhat shamed.

Cloud blinked. He very definitely remembered Zack's mother mentioning the one and only letter they'd ever received from their son, telling them about his promotion. At the time it had meant nothing to him and it hadn't occurred to him to think about it since, but now it struck him as very odd that Zack would only have written one letter home. Granted the older man had never been good at sitting still and doing paperwork at the best of times, but Zack was the sort of person who was just too _decent_ to leave his parents worrying about him like that. Even if he hadn't left under the best of circumstances.

"I don't understand," the brunet's mother was saying now, one hand over her mouth. "We only ever received one, when you got your promotion..."

"Zack," Cloud broke in, and all three of them turned to look at him again. He tried not to wince, feeling like an interloper. "In the letters, did you ever say anything negative about Shinra? Anything at all?"

"Huh? Yeah, sure, I guess so," Zack replied, frowning. "I mean, I tried to keep the letters cheerful, but even after the war it was hard to find anything _good_ to say about Shinra when you were looking at it from an inside perspective. What does that have to do with..."

The light went on, and he stopped talking in mid-sentence, his eyes wide. "They _censored_ me," he murmured, appalled but not actually as surprised as he could have been. That was just the sort of thing Shinra would do in their never-ending efforts to preserve their PR. "The bastards censored me!"

"Shinra controlled the mail, it would have been easy enough for them to do even if you didn't send the letters out from HQ," Cloud pointed out with a sigh, now feeling bad for both Zack and his parents. For both sides of the family to spend all those years thinking the other didn't care enough to even write them a letter... it must have been hard for them.

"Those fucking...!" Flushing, Zack glanced at his mother. He very much doubted the frail woman in front of him now was capable of holding him down to wash his mouth out with soap for swearing, but old habits died hard. "Sorry, mom. But I think this is one situation where stronger language is appropriate."

"I just might agree with you," she replied, startling both him and his father into a laugh. Before his very eyes life was returning to her; she stood a little straighter, and some of the weight of sorrow and age that had been in her eyes had faded. "But! We're standing out here in the cold, when we could be inside," she chided them, making shooing gestures at the door. "Inside, everyone. You too... Cloud, wasn't it? You brought our son back to us, the least we can do is invite you in for dinner. Dear, will you get extra water and wood for the fire, please?"

"I'll do it," Zack leapt to volunteer, earning a wide smile from his mother and a nod from his father, both of which made him feel about a million times better.

"The wood is behind the house, and the well is a block that way," his father told him, pointing.

"I'll just take the chocobo and get them stabled at the inn for the night," Cloud told them, twisting the reins in his hand and tugging at the birds to get them to turn around. "I'll be back by the time Zack's done with that stuff."

"You just come right inside, both of you," Zack's mother told them. "I'll have hot tea ready, and dinner not long after that."

As the elderly couple made their way back inside the house, Zack flashed Cloud an elated grin that was brighter than just about any Cloud could remember seeing from him before. Smiling back at him, Cloud waved him off towards the woodpile. Urging the older boy to come home had obviously been the right thing to do, and he was glad it had occurred to him. He'd do a lot to see that smile on Zack's face.

Getting the birds squared away wasn't difficult; he had more than enough gil to pay for the stabling, and if the innkeeper was disappointed that Cloud wouldn't be taking a room for himself, he was still more than happy to have the custom at all. Cloud stayed long enough to be certain the stablehand knew what he was doing, then headed back to Zack's place once he was satisfied.

The path from the inn led him back towards the rear of the hut, and he caught sight of Zack stacking up a pile of wood to carry inside as he approached. "Glad we came?" Cloud asked softly as he joined his friend, grabbing some of the wood for himself. Seeing that there was more of it unchopped than ready for the fire, he made a mental note that they should offer to do some of the heavy chores for the couple before they left.

"Yeah," Zack agreed enthusiastically, then frowned. "Though I don't think I'm going to stop being pissed off for a while. I can't _believe_ Shinra would..."

The mako in his eyes flared as he got angry again, and suddenly the bright blue glow turned green. Then _everything_ turned green as that agonizing headache hit both of them at the same time, dropping them to their knees with a clatter of falling wood.

Clutching at his head, Zack fought fiercely against the influence of Jenova, or Sephiroth, or whichever of them it was that caused these fits. He got them periodically, usually when he or Cloud was upset about something, but it had been a while since the last one. This one was worse than usual, and he almost swore he could _feel_ Sephiroth hanging over his shoulder.

 _I will take everything that ever mattered to you,_ the man's insidious voice whispered. _Everyone you ever loved, and everyone _they_ ever loved, until there is nothing left._

Moonlight flashed off a silver blade, the long arc unmistakeable. There was a sharp sound of impact... and then the presence was gone, leaving them both kneeling and gasping for air.

His head pounding, Cloud opened his eyes and glanced up at Zack. The older man looked just as shaken as he felt, and that was saying something. Feeling sick to his stomach, Cloud looked higher and saw a deep slash that had been left in the side of the house, as if a sword had been drawn across it.

"Zack," he croaked, and the brunet followed his eyes.

"Damn it," Zack muttered, getting carefully to his feet and moving to examine the cut. It was clear and precise, the edges so sharp they could have been cut by a laser. He'd seen what was left of monsters after Sephiroth got through with them too often not to recognize that mark when he saw it. "Masamune. No doubt about it."

Groaning, Cloud buried his face in his hands. Things were getting worse even faster than he'd thought, if the bastard was this bold. This was the first time he'd appeared when Zack and Cloud had both been awake and together, and he didn't like the implications. At _all_.

"Maybe we'd better not stay here too long, after all," he suggested hoarsely. The warning - or threat - had been clear, and he knew if Sephiroth did anything to Zack's parents, his friend would never forgive himself when he realized the truth.

Staring at the mark a moment longer, Zack finally nodded. "Yeah," he agreed. "Leaving sooner rather than later is probably a good idea. I can always come back." Assuming, of course, that there was anything left of any of them by the time Sephiroth got through with them.


	17. Chapter 17

Usually Tifa loved riding on airships, especially when Cid was at the wheel. The view from the Sierra's bridge was always amazing, and she never tired of watching people and buildings pass by below them looking so tiny they could have been toys.

This time the enjoyment had been somewhat eclipsed by their failure to find anything in the North Crater, leaving her grumpy that her fun had been spoiled as well as exhausted from the trip itself.

"You two should come back to the bar with me," she invited her companions as Cid set the ship down on a flat bit of ground outside of Edge. "The least I can do is make dinner for both of you. Yes, you too," she cut Vincent off before the ex-Turk had a chance to make the refusal she knew was coming. "I've got those documents from Hojo's lab for you, don't forget. Not that I expect they'll mean much more to you than they do to us, but it's something."

"You springing for drinks, too?" Cid asked slyly, and Tifa snorted.

"The first round is on me. The rest you pay for," she replied, knowing from experience just how much Cid could put away. He chuckled, amused rather than offended by the response. "Cloud should be back from Costa del Sol by now, he'll be happy to see you both."

She'd spoken to him briefly on the phone each night that they'd been gone, checking in. After that first night, when he'd probably still been at the race, he'd answered every time as promised. He'd seemed subdued when she'd spoken to him, but then he'd never been much of a phone conversationalist. Hades, he'd never been much of a conversationalist at all. Her news that they hadn't found anything had seemed to depress him even more, though.

Who could blame him, really? Tifa sighed and pushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear, staring out over the buildings of Edge and the ruins of Midgar. The crater had been their only real chance of finding an answer to the riddle of Sephiroth's reappearance. Without it, the best they could hope for was for Zack and Cloud to track the bastard down and kill him yet again, then wait until the next time he showed up to do it all over.

It couldn't go on like this forever. Sooner or later something was going to give beneath the repeated strain, and Tifa was very much afraid it might just be Cloud. At the very least Cloud wouldn't always be young and strong, and once he was too old or injured to fight who could possibly have a hope against Sephiroth? Zack, but he would be in much the same state by then. And there wouldn't be any new SOLDIERs, let alone ones with the knowledge and experience to be able to take on the greatest SOLDIER of all time.

They had to find some way of ending it once and for all, but Tifa was fresh out of ideas and she knew Cloud was, too. If Zack had come up with anything he wasn't sharing, but she doubted he would keep it to himself if he'd had any brilliant revelations. That left the information from Hojo's files as their only hope, but who knew when or even if they would find anything in that scientific jumble?

"Hey!" A heavy hand landed on her shoulder, making her jump. She turned to find Cid looking at her, his grizzled face lined with concern. "You okay? You been doin' a lot of woolgatherin' on this trip."

"Just worried," Tifa shook her head and forced herself to concentrate on here and now instead of the possible future problems. "Cloud's not going to be happy to hear that we didn't find anything, but there's nothing we can do about it now. Come on, let's get back to the 7th Heaven, and then I'll see about tracking him down. He's probably at Aerith's church, if he hasn't been called away on a message run."

"Why not call?" Vincent suggested as they made their way off the ship. "Since he's taken to answering." The dry amusement in his tone was clear to anyone who knew him as well as Tifa and Cid did.

"I tried, but there was no answer this time," she admitted. "Which is why I think he's probably at the church, there's no signal there for some reason. I want to get my stuff put away and the kids back from the neighbours before I go looking, though."

He nodded, and fell silent again. Cid and Tifa spoke quietly about various unimportant things as they made their way through Edge, Tifa waving and smiling briefly to everyone who called out to her as they passed. Most people knew her on sight, probably even more than would recognize Cloud, simply because her bar was the only place for miles around where liquor other than moonshine was available.

As they approached the bar, however, Vincent frowned and cocked his head. "Someone is there," he warned them, tossing his cape back off one shoulder and resting his hand on the butt of his gun. "I don't recognize the voice."

Cid and Tifa tensed. She couldn't hear anything, but she knew the Chaos project victim's senses were sharper than her own. Cid shrugged his shoulders to settle his lance where it hung across his back, making certain he'd be able to get at it easily, and Tifa tugged her gloves on quickly. Most people knew better than to try to start something with her, but there were always the drunks or crazies who might decide to make trouble.

Signalling the two men to stay just behind and to the side of her, she cautiously approached the building that had become her home. Less than half a block away she paused, hearing the voices for herself. Bright masculine laughter rang out clearly, and she relaxed. "It's okay," she assured the other two, rolling her eyes. You didn't have to know Zack for longer than a few hours before the sound of that laughter was fixed in your memory. "It's just Cloud and a friend of his."

"Cloud has friends?" Cid asked, raising an eyebrow. "Other than us?"

Since that was pretty much exactly the same thought she'd had, Tifa's lips twitched. "He does now," she agreed, waving them forward. There was no way they'd believe her even if she tried to explain. Oh, they'd believe who Zack was and what he'd been through, because they all knew very well what Shinra had been capable of and willing to do to its people. But if she'd tried to describe the way Cloud behaved around the ex-SOLDIER, well, that was a different story.

Besides, it would be more amusing to see their reactions for herself the first time they witnessed Zack tease a smile out of the taciturn blond.

"...totally full of it," she heard Cloud exclaim as they came within proper hearing distance.

"I'm serious! Ramuh's own truth, man!" Zack's voice replied, full of injured pride and wounded dignity at having his word questioned. Just the tone made Tifa smile. She had no idea what they were arguing about this time, but it was a familiar course for the conversation to take.

As the building came into sight she looked around, wondering what they were up to. It wasn't until Cid nudged her and nodded towards the roof that she spotted them, though. They were sitting astride the peak, repairing the shingles there by the looks of it. Both men were shirtless in the warm, unusually sunny weather, and she had to pause to admire the sight.

"You don't remember this?" Zack asked, raising his voice slightly to be heard as he hammered a row of nails into the shingle Cloud was holding in place. "You were _there_ , you really don't have any memory of it?"

"Okay, now I know you're bullshitting me," Cloud retorted, though he was grinning at his friend and lover. "What the hell would I have been doing there? You, I can believe, but I was just a private."

"You were standing guard at a door about ten feet behind us," Zack informed him, highly amused at the memory. "All muffled up in your helmet and scarf. We didn't even know you'd been there until you told me the next day. "

"Yeah, right," Cloud rolled his eyes, now really not believing the older man. "Like _he_ wouldn't have known I was there."

"You know, contrary to popular belief, Sephiroth's senses weren't _that_ much sharper than a 1st Class," Zack replied, laughing. "We both knew _someone_ was there, but it wasn't like he could identify you by scent or something."

"So, what happened then?" Cloud asked, fascinated by the story in spite of himself. Sephiroth had been more active than ever since they'd returned to Midgar from Gongaga, but somehow listening to Zack tell stories about the man from their time in Shinra wasn't as painful as it could have been. It was almost like they were two different people, the inhuman madman who had destroyed his life and the charismatic general who had been his hero. It was easier to think of him that way.

"Then Seph took the sheaf of orders," Zack continued the story he'd been telling, his eyes bright with mako and remembered glee. "You know that paper folding art they have in Wutai? He must have picked it up somewhere during the war, because he folded the pages into this pretty flower. A lotus, I think; something with lots of sharp, spiky petals, anyway. Then he offered it back to Heidigger along with an excruciatingly polite suggestion about where _exactly_ the bastard could stuff it..."

"What?" Cloud burst out laughing at the image. He could picture it clearly: Heidigger sputtering and choking on his incoherent rage, Sephiroth standing there with a perfectly blank expression holding out the flower, and Zack nearly strangling in an attempt not to laugh in their superior's face. "Now I _really_ don't believe you!" he exclaimed, though he was starting to wish he _could_ remember. "There's no way he'd ever have done something like that!"

Still unnoticed below the two men, Cid leaned over to murmur into Tifa's ear. "Who is that, and what has he done with the real Cloud Strife?" he asked, and she wasn't entirely certain he wasn't serious. Vincent was simply standing there staring up at the two, but he was probably just as shocked as Cid.

No less shocked than she'd been, the first time she'd heard the two friends bantering like that. "It's really him," she said, shrugging. "Despite this new mess with Sephiroth, he's changed a lot in the last few weeks. It's kind of a long story, but I'm sure you'll get to hear it." She hadn't told them the tale of Zack's miraculous reappearance, figuring it was up to Cloud to decide how much he wanted the rest of AVALANCHE to know. As far as she knew only she was aware of the whole story of the history between the two men, since she'd somehow been there in Cloud's mind when he'd remembered the truth about his past.

Planting her hands on her hips, she raised her voice to catch the attention of the men on the roof. "All right, you two! What did you break?" she demanded. She couldn't think of any reason other than guilt that they would be doing heavy repair work on the building without her asking, especially work that wasn't terribly urgent. Yes, she'd been meaning to get around to replacing the shingles for half a year now, but the leaks were still small and manageable.

Jumping, Cloud managed to avoid tumbling off his precarious perch only thanks to his mako-enhanced reflexes. Zack was laughing at him; he wasn't sure if the older man had already known Tifa was there or if he'd just been less startled by her sudden question, but either way it made Cloud flush. "We didn't break anything!" he protested automatically.

Then, because he felt compelled to honesty, "...important," he added sheepishly. Even when he'd been living alone he'd usually managed to break something minor at least once a week, and with Zack added into the equation the damage seemed to grow exponentially. It was just the price of having the increased strength of a SOLDIER. Even after years of living with it, it was still easy to forget himself and find that he'd damaged something in a moment of inattention.

"We'll fix it," Zack added his assurance with a laugh. They'd pretty much totalled Tifa's ladder when they'd first taken it into their heads to work on the roof, but he'd been desperate for something to take Cloud's mind off Sephiroth's growing threat before the blond brooded himself into a funk. There hadn't been any point in trying to deal with Sephiroth before Tifa returned, leaving them with too much time on their hands. As willing as Zack was, sex only worked as a distraction so many times in one day.

Which was another reason to work on Tifa's building, actually. Zack suspected Cloud was trying to ease the guilt he was feeling over 'cheating' on his 'girlfriend'. That probably wouldn't change anytime soon, certainly not until he talked to Tifa about it and got it dealt with. Given everything else that was happening, that might not be for a while.

"You're damn right, you'll fix it," Tifa growled, throwing her hands up in exasperation that was only half feigned. How could any two people who were so incredibly adept in a fight be so amazingly _clumsy_ in day-to-day life? "Come inside, I'm not telling you about this trip by yelling the information for the whole neighbourhood to hear. _After_ cleaning up!" she finished hastily when they stood up and she got a good look at how much dirt they'd picked up.

Cloud looked at Zack, and Zack looked back at him, and the same thought occurred to them both at the same moment. The only place to clean off without going inside was the water hose at the back of the building... and whichever of them got to it last was probably going to be thoroughly sprayed down by the one to reach it first.

Without any further reflection, without even any warning they were going to move, they both bolted down the slanted side of the roof, laughing and shoving at each other as they had in the race out to the ocean in Costa del Sol. Not even bothering with the ladder, they leapt off the edge of the roof.

Watching them disappear from sight, Tifa shook her head. "I don't believe the two of them," she muttered to Cid and Vincent, gesturing for them to head inside the bar. "They're worse than the kids by a factor of about a million."

"He a SOLDIER?" Cid guessed shrewdly, and Tifa nodded.

"1st Class," she told him, figuring that much at least was safe to reveal. "He and Cloud were friends when they were both in Shinra together. Cloud found him again a couple of weeks ago, and it's... really made a difference for him." That was putting it mildly.

"Huh." Cid grinned around his cigarette when Tifa winced at a thud and a crash from outside, and the sound of shouts and laughter reached them dimly through the walls. "You know, there was a saying in Shinra, back when I was still stationed in Midgar instead of out in Rocket Town."

"Oh?" she looked at him curiously, and his grin widened.

"SOLDIERs at play are ten times more dangerous than SOLDIERs at war," he quoted, and she had to laugh.

By the time Cloud and Zack came inside they'd both been thoroughly soaked by cold water from the hose. They'd managed to wring out the worst of it and use their discarded shirts to mop up a good deal of the rest, but they were still decidedly damp-looking as they entered the room. Tifa's lips twitched and she hid a smile behind her hand, though she couldn't help but note with a twinge how close together the two men were walking. Had something happened in Costa del Sol after all?

Seeing the way Cloud glanced at her and then looked hastily away again, and Zack's apologetic expression, she was pretty sure something _had_. Swallowing, she promised herself that she wouldn't allow herself to be upset where either of them could see it. There was no point in being a sore loser; she was better than that.

"So? What did you find?" Cloud asked, trying to divert Tifa's attention from him and Zack. The look on her face was making him _very_ uncomfortable, but he didn't want to get into that particular conversation in front of Cid and Vincent.

"Absolutely nothing," Tifa sighed, tossing a couple of beers to Cloud and Zack and gesturing for them to join the group at a table. "No sign of Sephiroth, no sign of Jenova, no..."

Vincent, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed rather than sitting with the rest of them, shifted uneasily. Cid was the one who spoke up, however. "Hey now," he objected, frowning at Zack. "Old friend or not, should we be discussin' this in company?"

Tifa understood his objection; after she'd explained the situation to him and Vincent, the three of them had agreed that the fewer people who knew about it outside of AVALANCHE, the better. The last thing they needed was to cause a panic, and people still remembered all too well the destruction wrought by Sephiroth. She looked at Cloud questioningly, letting him decide what to tell them.

"Zack's as much a part of this as I am," the blond said firmly, taking a seat and kicking another towards the ex-SOLDIER. "Maybe more. If we're going to beat the bastard once and for all, it'll be with his help. You can trust him."

He did _not_ mention his certainty that Zack was in fact the carrier of Sephiroth this time around. There was no point in rousing the others against his friend, and even if he was fairly certain that Sephiroth was probably aware of everything that Zack knew about their attempts to stop him, it didn't matter. Without Zack's help they were in a lot more trouble, and as long as Cloud accounted for the fact that anything his friend suggested might be influenced by Sephiroth, it wouldn't make a difference.

So he kept telling himself, anyway. Maybe eventually he'd really believe it, and the sick feeling in his gut would go away.

"Zack, this is Cid Highwind, formerly of Shinra's space program, and Vincent Valentine, former Turk," he introduced his friend as Zack sat. "Vincent is the one I told you about, the one who's part of the Chaos project."

Vincent frowned to hear that Cloud had been discussing his past with strangers, but Zack just nodded and looked the man square in his eerie crimson eyes. "I was taken to the lab from Nibelheim, same as Cloud," he said, and some of the tension in Vincent's shoulders eased. "The two of us escaped together, but that's a long story. I'm sorry I wasn't able to get you out at the same time; if I'd stopped for anything, they'd have caught us again."

"It is of no matter," the ex-Turk shrugged gracefully. "I would not have gone, even had you tried to free me. I was not yet ready to face the world at that time."

Zack could understand that well enough. If someone had thrown open his tank a year ago and offered him the chance to escape, he wasn't sure he would have taken it. He'd been too absorbed in the pain of old memories and past failures, and far too lost in the mako to care about freedom.

"I worked closely with both Cloud and Sephiroth, and I knew Aerith," he continued. "I've got a few choice things to say to Seph once we catch up to him, you can be sure of that. And it seems appropriate that Cloud and I face him down together in the end." Since they'd both been there at the start of it, when Sephiroth had snapped that first time.

He exchanged a glance with Cloud, who nodded. "That's the short version," the blond concluded. "The long version can wait. So there wasn't anything useful at all in the crater?" he asked, though he didn't doubt that Tifa had told them everything. If there had been anything at all, she would have been fairly bursting to tell him. Truly, he'd known the answer the moment he'd looked down from the roof and seen her expression.

"We were probably exposed to more mako than is healthy, but that's it," Tifa confirmed despondently. She drained a good quarter of her beer, almost wishing she dared to get drunk and forget about it for a little while. About Sephiroth, and Zack and Cloud, and everything else.

She was stronger than that, though, and she wasn't going to let it beat her. "So, we'll just have to look somewhere else," she continued doggedly. "Have we heard back from Reeve about Hojo's notes? Or Cid, have you heard from any of your contacts?"

"Honestly, your best bet would be to go straight to the top," Cid shook his head. "Just 'bout everyone I knew is gone from Rocket Town now, but I heard tell a good lot of 'em have gone right back where they started - workin' for Shinra."

"For Rufus, you mean?" Cloud said shrewdly, and the pilot nodded. "Damn it. What's he want with them? Don't tell me he's hoping to set up Shinra again. Even he can't be crazy enough to think he could reinstate the reactors."

"No, but I'll bet he's got plans to regain power some other way," Tifa countered. "Either by getting a monopoly on the new energy sources somehow, or by dominating some other area of commerce. He's obviously still got some resources left to him. Maybe we _should_ take this to him."

"The day I go to a Shinra for help will be the day they're tying a tag on my toe," Zack declared flatly. "I've heard he's better than his dad - he sure as Hades can't be much _worse_ \- but I still trust him about as far as I can throw him."

"I have to agree," Cloud murmured, his eyes dark. "Rufus is a last resort at best."

"Guys, I think we may _be_ on our last resort," Tifa pointed out. "We're running out of options, here."

"There's still a chance we could confront Sephiroth directly," Zack insisted. "He's getting a lot more bold; there've been sightings of him every night since we got back from the western continent. I think we should try staking out the city, see if we can corner him."

That sounded like a phenomenally bad idea to Cloud, but he couldn't say why without explaining his theory about the connection between Zack and Sephiroth. The absolute _last_ thing he wanted was to confront the bastard without some way of dealing with him that wouldn't hurt Zack, but Tifa was right that they were running out of options.

Besides, if Zack was encouraging them to avoid Rufus... didn't that mean that was probably what Sephiroth wanted? Going to the caves together had turned out to be a huge mistake, even if Zack had saved Cloud from the attraction of the Lifestream; it had given Sephiroth a chance to get at them both on _his_ turf, so to speak.

"I'll talk to Rufus," he said abruptly, and tried not to notice the shock and hurt in Zack's eyes at this sudden withdrawal of support. "If he can help in any way, I'll shake it out of him. By force, if necessary. He _owes_ me, and I'll make damn sure he knows it." His eyes glinted, and Tifa couldn't help a grim smile of her own.

"I'd love to be a fly on the wall when you go," she said, raising her bottle to Cloud in a silent toast. "Staking out the city isn't a bad idea either, but if he hasn't come near you two yet, that's got to be deliberate. He just may not show up wherever you are."

"Then they should not be the ones to do the hunting," Vincent put in, making them all look at him in surprise. "Leave that to the rest of us. Call in Barrett and Yuffie, Cait and Nanaki. There are more than enough of us to form a watch, and we are strong enough in pairs to at least hold him at bay until the others can arrive."

"Now that's the best idea I've heard all day," Zack said approvingly. He didn't much like the thought of getting more people in the line of fire, but it wasn't like these were civilians. All of them had faced Sephiroth down multiple times before, they knew what they were getting into. And Vincent was probably right that they could handle Sephiroth at least long enough for Cloud and Zack to get there and take him down.

Cloud grimaced, unable to find a way to veto the suggestion that wouldn't require explanation. And now more than ever he didn't want people to know what he'd already realized; Tifa _might_ be an exception, but if the rest of AVALANCHE ever realized that Zack was the one carrying Sephiroth, they might well attack him without a second thought. Cloud couldn't allow that to happen.

It just meant he'd have to find a solution soon, before they had a chance to catch Sephiroth and pin him down in a fight. Privately Cloud resolved to track down Rufus as soon as humanly possible. One way or another this was coming to head, and if he didn't want to lose his best friend again then he was going to have to move fast.


	18. Chapter 18

It took Cloud far too long to actually understand what he was looking at. In the dim, pre-dawn light, the trail of blood droplets and bloody footprints that led across their tiny common room looked black instead of red. It was only the too-familiar scent of it that let him identify it, but even though he knew what it was he still couldn't quite make sense of it.

His eyes tracked the trail from the entrance to the rest of the church until it reached Zack's door, where a larger puddle indicated that whoever had tracked the blood in had stood there for a moment. On the handle of the door itself was another smudged print, as if a bloody glove had rested there to open the door.

Bloody footprints, bloody gloves, and a trail of droplets that could only have been left by blood dripping off a naked sword blade... once Cloud finally managed to kick his brain into gear, it all added up to only one thing. Sephiroth had killed someone last night, probably several someones judging by the amount of blood, and he hadn't reverted to Zack until the moment the former SOLDIER had reached his own door.

Feeling sick, Cloud clapped a hand over his mouth as he gagged and stumbled out of the house they'd built for themselves. For once the quiet calm of the church only made him feel worse, as the trail of blood tracked through the flowers like a slashed path of desecration.

Until now the worst damage caused by the bastard had been to property, but now someone had died. And it was only going to get worse from here. Even Zack's formidable strength of will apparently couldn't last forever, and the more it eroded the more powerful Sephiroth would get. And the harder it would be to stop him.

Assuming they could stop him at all. Cloud still couldn't face the idea of having to fight and kill _Zack_ to rid himself of Sephiroth this time. He couldn't do it, there was no way. Even if he succeeded, it would destroy him, and Sephiroth would only win the next round.

Kneeling beside the still waters of the crystal-clear pool, Cloud splashed his face and tried to clear his head. He needed to _think_ , not panic. There had to be something he could do, there _had_ to be. If Aerith had any ideas she wasn't speaking up; if ever he could have used her support and counsel it was at that moment, but he got no sense of her presence at all. Zack was probably still asleep, and likely to remain so for some time, since the brunet never got up this early unless he had to.

Rufus. He had to go to Rufus. He'd already decided that yesterday, but by the time their brainstorming session had broken up and Cid and Vincent had returned to the airship it had been far too late to head out to Healin that night. Cloud had been planning on going today, despite Zack's continued protests and grumbling that they couldn't possibly trust a Shinra.

Which, given what he now knew about how thin Zack's control was at this point, probably meant that going to Rufus _was_ what he needed to do. Braced by the thought, able to calm himself a little now that he had a plan, Cloud drew a deep breath and stood.

And nearly staggered as another thought occurred to him. _Who_ had been killed last night? Who would Sephiroth have gone after? The warning in Gongaga had been clear; those closest to Cloud and Zack would be killed, and killed horribly, just to torment them further. Zack's family was out of reach, and that left...

Without even finishing the thought, Cloud was bolting for his bike. Uncaring if he woke Zack, he kicked the engine over and tore out of the building, his heart in his mouth and chest clenched tight with panic. Tifa. The kids. If anything had happened to them, Cloud didn't know what he would do.

He didn't even bother to prop the bike up in its usual spot, letting it skid to a stop and fall as he launched himself off it and charged up to the building. He burst through the door, probably breaking the lock but not really caring, and ran wildly up the stairs. "Tifa!"

"What?" Never in his life had Cloud been so immensely grateful to hear her voice, full of irritation and concern as it was. She opened the door to her bedroom just before he reached it, standing there in a filmy nightgown and tugging her second fighting glove on as she looked around for him. "Cloud? What is it, what's happening? Is it Sephiroth?"

He laughed with sheer relief at the sight of her, utterly incongruous in her silky gown and leather gloves, hair rumpled from sleep but her eyes flashing with determination. There was not a doubt in his mind that she was perfectly prepared to go charging off dressed just like that, if that was what was needed. And she'd probably kick the crap out of just about anything, nightgown or not. Gods, but he loved this woman.

Catching her up in a tight hug, he buried his face in her hair and just let himself shake with relief and reaction. Maybe his feelings for her weren't quite what he'd thought they were, but that didn't mean he wouldn't have been devastated to lose her. If she wasn't the most important person in his life any more she was certainly in the top two.

On the floor above he could hear Marlene and Denzel calling questions and shouting, scrambling to get dressed and come down to see what was going on. They were okay. Sephiroth hadn't killed them, they were okay. Whoever was dead, it wasn't them, and Cloud couldn't even find it in himself to feel guilty for being so relieved that it was someone _else_ who would be mourning loved ones today.

"Cloud!" Shocked to her core, Tifa hugged him back and lifted one hand to run her fingers through his spiky hair, trying to soothe him. She'd never seen him act this way... no, that wasn't true. After Aerith had died he'd been like this, his whole body shuddering with the horror of what had happened, of what he'd nearly done.

"I thought... I thought..." Cloud couldn't force the words out, couldn't even speak the idea aloud for fear that saying it would somehow make it true after all. Getting a grip on himself, he looked up and saw Marlene and Denzel's frightened faces staring at them from the stairwell, Denzel standing protectively in front of Marlene.

"It's okay," he told them hoarsely, letting go of Tifa with one hand and reaching out towards them, inviting them to come closer. "It's all right, I'm sorry I frightened you. I thought something bad had happened to all of you, and I was worried. But it's okay, you're okay, everything is fine." Maybe if he repeated it often enough, the sick feeling in his gut would start to subside as it sank in that it was true.

They came to him, and he and Tifa both put their arms around the kids, holding them close in a four-way hug. "I'm sorry," he said again to them, his heart finally beginning to resettle into its proper place in his chest. "I just... couldn't stand the thought that something might have happened to all of you."

"It's okay," Tifa assured him, though she was still bewildered why he'd have thought such a thing. He hadn't seemed worried about them when he and Zack had left late last night. Glancing out the window at the bare sliver of sun showing through the buildings at the horizon, she confirmed that it hadn't been more than a handful of hours since then. What could possibly have happened in the meantime to upset him so?

Speaking of whom... "Where's Zack? Is he okay?" she asked, aghast at the thought that something had happened to him. If Sephiroth had gotten Zack, gods, she wasn't sure Cloud would survive the blow. Especially if what she suspected about the change in relationship between the two men was true.

Her words made him stiffen, but he shook his head. "He's fine." Probably. He hadn't actually looked into the older man's room to check, and they'd both been so tired the night before they'd tumbled into their own beds without more than a last kiss. But he very much doubted that any of that blood had been Sephiroth's, and therefore wasn't Zack's.

"Go back and try to get some more sleep if you can," he told the kids. This wasn't a discussion they needed to be involved in, though he'd be surprised if they would be able to sleep again after all the fuss. Other kids their age might have been stubborn upon being ordered out of the adults' business, but Marlene and Denzel had both seen enough violence in their lives to know that sometimes the adults needed to be free to do things without having to worry about the vulnerable kids being in the way.

Once they were upstairs, Tifa held up a finger and ducked back into her room to change. She emerged again within the promised minute, dressed in shirt and shorts, with her hair tied back into a messy tail.

"Okay, now, what was that all about?" she demanded quietly as she led the way downstairs and into the kitchen. She set about making them both coffee, which Cloud was grateful for; despite the adrenalin still rushing through his system, he would welcome the stimulant.

"Sephiroth killed someone last night," he told her as she scooped fragrant ground beans into a filter. "Maybe a lot of people, certainly more than one. I don't know who, but I thought..."

"We would have been the obvious targets," Tifa nodded, her eyes softening as she reached out and rested a hand on his arm. No wonder he had been in such a panic. "How do you know? Did the Turks contact you? Where _is_ Zack?"

Cloud's eyes darkened, and his jaw clenched as he looked away from her. "There was blood all over our main room this morning," he replied. "Footprints, and a trail of drops from a blade. Masamune."

"Oh, sweet Shiva," Tifa gasped, her hand flying to her mouth as her eyes went wide. "At _your_ place? Why? What on earth is he trying to do? Why didn't he just attack you like he always has before?"

"Because Zack's strength of will is still too strong for that, I think," he said grimly. "Though for how much longer, I'm not sure." Quickly he explained his theory about the connection between Zack and Sephiroth, laying out all the facts as he knew them while she poured the coffee. By the time he was finished she looked as horrified as he'd felt when the realization had first struck him, standing there holding her still mostly full coffee mug as if she'd forgotten what to do with it.

"Oh, gods. Oh, dear gods," Tifa repeated herself, feeling like the words were far too inadequate but too stunned to come up with anything stronger. "Gods! Not _Zack!_ " No wonder Cloud had been so deathly determined to find some way of stopping Sephiroth that didn't involve killing the carrier. No wonder he'd been so adamant about never leaving Zack's side for very long. How it must have been eating at him to carry the weight of this knowledge around all this time, she couldn't imagine.

"What are we going to do?" she asked, despondent. If it would ruin Cloud to lose Zack to Sephiroth, it would _destroy_ him to have to kill Zack himself.

"I'm going to Rufus," Cloud answered her, his eyes flashing with mako and desperation. "I'll take Hojo's files, and I'll wring the answers out of him if it kills me." His hand tightened on his own untouched mug. "I don't have time to pussyfoot around with him."

"He may not be able to give you answers immediately, even if he wants to," Tifa pointed out reluctantly. "He'll have to give it to the scientists, and..."

"I don't care," Cloud growled, cutting her off. "I'll stand over him until he's _got_ the answers, if I have to. One way or another, I'm not leaving until I get what I want from him."

"Cloud, there might not even _be_ anything in Hojo's notes!" Tifa protested. Not that she had any better ideas about what to do, but Cloud seemed almost obsessed with it, and there wasn't any point in him beating his head against a brick wall if the notes weren't the answer. "It's not as if he'd have been plotting out possible ways to stop Sephiroth, he _wanted_ things to go the way they did."

"Then I'll find another way!" Cloud shouted, his eyes flashing again as the mug shattered under the pressure of his hands. Blood from small cuts caused by the sharp ceramic mingled with the scalding liquid, but he hardly felt the pain of the minor injuries. "I love him! I am not giving up on him!"

There, it was out, he'd said it. The words hung between them for a long moment, echoing in the quiet morning air. Tifa swallowed and closed her eyes briefly, then nodded and looked up at him. "I know," she said softly. "I know you do. And he's important to me too. But you need to calm down and _think_ , Cloud, not just react. If you go rushing off headlong after whatever thought pops into your mind, you might miss the real answer. Maybe we should call in the others..."

"No. Absolutely not," Cloud declared immediately. "Damn it, Tifa, the others don't care one bit about Zack. They don't even know him. They'd kill him without a second thought, just to be rid of Sephiroth. Just like you and I were willing to do, if we'd found the black clone we assumed had to be the carrier."

Unfortunately, Tifa had to concede that he was probably right. "Fine, but I still think we need to face the possibility that... that there might not be anything we can do quickly enough to..."

She'd only meant to say that they might have to consider locking Zack up somewhere, for his own protection as much as for everyone else's, but Cloud didn't let her finish the sentence. "No!" he half screamed the denial, making her back up an involuntary step at the anger and pain in his voice. "No, damn it! I lost him once and it nearly destroyed me. _I will not lose him again!_ "

As he spoke the last words he turned and put his fist clear through the wall, expending some of his rage and fear the only way he could think to do so. Facing away from her, he stood there with his eyes closed, breathing hard and struggling to control himself. Everything was happening too fast; he was out of time and out of options, and terrified beyond belief. This was _worse_ than his worst nightmare, and he didn't know what to do. He was floundering, alone, and he couldn't even count on his friends because he was the only one who wouldn't see killing Zack as the inevitable solution.

Staring at him, her heart pounding, Tifa tried to remember if she'd ever seen him so overwrought before. Possibly, but if so she couldn't recall it, couldn't think past the moment they were in right now. Still without facing her, though in a more normal tone of voice, he declared, "I'm going to Rufus. Take the kids and get the hell out of the city. Go to one of the others, somewhere you'll be safe. I want you out of the line of fire."

Then he was gone before she could say anything else, striding out of the kitchen. A moment later she heard the sound of his bike starting, and then he tore out of the yard, heading for the edge of the city. Sighing, she set her mug aside and grabbed a rag, kneeling to clean up the shards of ceramic and spilled coffee and blood.

He was right that she needed to get the kids somewhere safe, but if he thought she was going to go hide somewhere then he could damn well think again. She wasn't running from this fight any more than she'd run from the last ones, and maybe _this_ time he would have it driven into his head that they were there to _help_ him.

Standing, she dumped the mess into the dustbin, rag and all. A soft scuffling noise in the doorway reached her; the kids must have heard Cloud leaving and ventured downstairs again to find out what was going on. "You two need to go pack a bag," she started, turning towards the door.

Her words broke off in a startled gasp. In the doorway stood not the kids but Zack, his dark hair mussed and fists clenched at his sides, blood covering his gloves. Worst of all, the eyes that looked back at her from his face were not his friendly dark blue, but a bone-chilling green. Sephiroth's eyes.

With a curse Tifa turned and ran for the stairs, her only thought that she had to warn Marlene and Denzel to get out before she could turn and fight to hold him off long enough for them to get away.

* * *

Healin Lodge was just far enough out of the city that there was no sign of the blight caused by the reactors. It was surrounded by greenery, and had been a favoured retreat of the wealthy and elite of Midgar. As far as Cloud knew, it was now occupied solely by Rufus Shinra and his four remaining Turks.

He drove up the lane, gravel churning up in a wake from his tires and leaving an ugly rut in the road. He had neither the time nor the patience to be more careful, nor did he particularly care if he ruined the picturesque landscaping. He wanted answers, and he wanted them now, and that was all he cared about.

Once again he dumped the bike the moment he reached the stairs up to the door, running up them as fast as he could. For someone with as much mako enhancement as he had, that was very fast indeed.

Near the door, someone with light hair in a black suit had emerged to see what all the fuss was about. "Cloud?" Elena gasped, recognizing him. "What in Odin's name..."

"Where's Rufus?" he demanded, his voice emerging as little more than a snarl. Her eyes widened, and instead of answering she fled for the door, trying to slam it shut before he could get to it.

Cursing, he put on an extra burst of speed, but she still managed to close it just before he got there. He heard the sound of the lock shooting home along with her muffled shouts for help. Undaunted, he reared back and kicked at the door with his booted foot, the metal buckling under the force of the blow. Two more kicks and it had bent enough for him to be able to grab it and tear it right off its hinges, tossing it out of the way behind him. He didn't often show off his strength like this, which meant even those who should have known better often forgot he was capable of it.

His senses on edge, he heard the click of the safety on the gun before he actually saw her. Since he'd half expected something like that, he was easily able to sidestep the bullet and grab the gun, twisting it viciously out of her hand. In the same movement he smashed the butt of the pistol into her temple, dropping her like a sack of rocks. Only a soft groan as she hit the floor told him she was still alive. He was already focusing on the rest of the room, looking for the other Turks he knew had to be there. He had no idea why they were suddenly hostile and refusing to let him speak to Rufus, but he wasn't about to let them stop him.

"Stop right there!" Tseng's cultured voice ordered him. If Cloud hadn't known better he'd have said there was a trace of fear in the man's tone. He turned slowly to find the dark-haired Turk standing in the next doorway in a two-handed gun stance, his pistol aimed unwaveringly at Cloud's heart. "Don't move or I'll shoot."

Cloud snorted. Did Tseng actually think he could possibly hit someone as fast as a 1st Class before Cloud could reach him? Cloud had witnessed Zack literally dancing his way through a hail of bullets, and those had been fired by rifles and machine guns, not handheld pistols. In a contest between a Turk and a SOLDIER the Turk didn't stand a chance, and they both knew it. Cloud might not be a SOLDIER in name, but he certainly was one in body.

"Where's Rufus?" he demanded again, one hand clenched on the hilt of First Tsurugi though he made no move yet to draw it.

"Why?" Tseng countered, still sounding mostly calm but with a definite edge to his voice this time. "You come charging in here, break down the door and injure one of my Turks, and you think I'm going to let you anywhere near Rufus?"

"If she hadn't slammed the door in my face I wouldn't have needed to break it down, and if she hadn't fired on me I wouldn't have knocked her out," Cloud growled. "Now either get out of my way voluntarily, or I will go through you the same way I went through her. I don't have time for this!"

"Take one... step towards him... and I'll... shoot you," Elena rasped from somewhere near his ankle. Startled, he looked down and saw that she'd dragged herself up onto one elbow, blood streaming into her eye from a cut on her temple but her gun steady as she aimed it at him. Two guns weren't any more dangerous to him than one, but he was silently impressed that she'd recovered so quickly. He'd thought he'd struck her harder than that.

"Don't make me hit you again," he responded forbiddingly. "Next time I won't pull my punch."

"I'll ask you one more time, why do you want to see Rufus?" Tseng demanded, his finger tightening on the trigger. Cloud tensed at that, ready to dodge, but they were interrupted before either of them had a chance to act.

"Enough, Tseng," Rufus Shinra's smooth tenor reached them both, and a moment later the man himself limped into view behind his bodyguard. The end of the geostigma had freed the blond from his wheelchair, but he still needed a cane to move around and it was obvious that he would be a long time yet in recovering from the collapse of Shinra Tower. Despite his infirmity, he didn't look in the least bit worried or intimidated as he faced down Cloud.

"Ah, if it isn't the former SOLDIER Cloud," Rufus greeted him mockingly. Cloud suspected that Rufus had seen the Nibelheim files and had recognized him in their very first confrontation, and had known all along that Cloud wasn't the SOLDIER he claimed to be. He certainly took great pleasure in reminding the ex-trooper of it. "What brings you to my humble abode on this fine day?"

Cloud reached into his pocket, making both Tseng and Elena tense, and tossed a packet at Rufus that contained copies of the disks Reeve had cracked for him. The former Shinra president made no effort to catch them, allowing them to fall at his feet rather than fumbling for them with hands that still didn't work as well as they should have.

"Hojo's files," Cloud informed him bluntly. "From a secret lab he kept not far from Kalm. Everything on the Jenova project, in particular the files for Sephiroth, myself, and SOLDIER 1st Class Zack."

"Oh?" Rufus raised an eyebrow at him. "And why are you giving them to me?"

"Because just about every competent scientist left in the world seems to be working for you, and I need to know what's actually _in_ there," Cloud told him. "I want to stop him once and for all, not just kill his carrier again." He didn't mention the part where the carrier was Zack; no way in hell was he giving Rufus that kind of power over him. If Rufus knew just _how_ important this was to Cloud, he would have far too much leverage.

"Since that's something I'd rather like to see myself, I'm inclined to cooperate," Rufus replied dryly. "There was no need to destroy my property or hurt my Turks. It will take some time..."

Cloud took a step towards him, drawing his blade, and Tseng pushed himself back in front of Rufus to protect him. "I don't _have_ time," Cloud snarled. "Sephiroth is killing people. We're _out_ of time, and you _will_ give me the answers I need, or so help me I will cut them out of your hide!"

The headache hit him all at once, the agonizing migraine that meant Sephiroth was active somewhere. But he'd left Zack behind in Midgar, there was no way the older man could have followed him out to Healin.

"Hmm?" The sound of Rufus' voice reached him distantly through the pain. "Now, that _is_ interesting. I can certainly see why Elena slammed the door on you. Who exactly did you say is the carrier this time?"

"Zack," Cloud gasped, his vision swimming in shades of green as he fought off Sephiroth's power. It wasn't intended as an answer to Rufus' question, though it inadvertently was one. Rather it was an exclamation of realization, as Cloud kicked himself for a fool. He'd left Zack alone, unguarded, even though he'd known how thin his lover's control had become. If he was sensing Sephiroth this strongly even though they were miles apart, the bastard had to be in full control and he was probably killing someone.

 _Tifa..._

There was a crackle of static, and Tseng lifted one hand from his gun to touch the receiver hooked over his ear. "Sir," he said a moment later, "Reno reports multiple bodies found in Edge, in what used to be Sector 7. There's panic in the streets, and he doesn't have an ID or body count yet. People are saying it was Sephiroth who did it."

"Damn it!" Cloud swore, and with a massive effort of will he shoved Sephiroth's presence away from him and sheathed his sword. As much as he wanted to stay here and force Rufus into producing a miracle for him, he needed to get back there and protect the city from Sephiroth. To protect _Tifa_ from him. "We need those answers, and we need them _now_!" he snarled at Rufus. "I'll hold him off as long as I can!"

Turning, he bolted back through the ruined door, heading for his bike. He should have secured Zack somehow before leaving the church. He should have escorted Tifa and the kids safely out of the city before he'd left. He should have done _something_ , should have _thought_ like Tifa was telling him to, instead of tearing out of there the way he had. Instead he'd left her in danger, and there was no way she would be able to fight off Sephiroth by herself.

Praying to every god he could think of, Cloud drove back to Edge at the top speed of his bike. The closer he got, the more he could feel Sephiroth's power pushing at the edges of his mind again, and the more he panicked. Always before this, the headache and the sense of presence had faded after a few minutes. This time it was only getting stronger, and the thought of what that might mean was more than he could bear. What if Zack's control had finally snapped completely?

He lost time in the streets of Edge; Reno hadn't been kidding about the chaos in the streets, and trying to get the bike through the crowds of people milling about was a lost cause. At last he abandoned it and ran instead, shoving his way roughly past anyone who got in his way, uncaring if someone got hurt.

For the second time that morning he burst into the 7th Heaven, terrified of what he would find. As he entered the main room Sephiroth's power suddenly surged within him, leaving him blinded and reeling against the wall, clutching at his head. This time the fit seemed to last forever, and he struggled wildly to be free of it.

When it finally ebbed and his eyes cleared, he looked around in horror to find exactly what he'd been afraid of. Tables and chairs were scattered everywhere, most of them shattered past recognition. The signs of a fight were obvious, and there were smudges of blood on the walls and puddles of it on the floor. Near the middle of the room Tifa lay broken and bleeding, an ugly wound in her chest that could only have been caused by a sword being run through her.

Cloud knew the look of that wound, knew it far too well. He'd seen it on her once before, in the Nibelheim reactor, and he'd seen it on Aerith in the lost City of the Ancients. Hell, he'd seen it on himself, after Sephiroth had flung him off the masamune and tossed him carelessly to one side.

And just as he'd feared Zack was standing over her, his eyes glowing green and his hands bloody. Something inside Cloud died a little, and he knew the rest would follow shortly. Everything he feared most was coming to pass, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.


	19. Chapter 19

" _Tifa!_ " The exclamation felt like it was torn from Cloud's throat, his voice hoarse and full of anguish. His heart broke when she didn't so much as twitch. Gods, was she dead? Was he too late?

"Cloud," Zack said, his tone low and smooth like he was trying to sound soothing. "Cloud, calm down, kid."

"Get away from her." Cloud's voice cracked, and his knuckles were white around the hilt of First Tsurugi as he drew the blade. Zack held up his hands, one empty but the other clenched around an item Cloud couldn't see.

"You have to calm down," Zack insisted, his eyes locked on Cloud's. That did _not_ help Cloud's peace of mind, not when the eyes he was looking into were Sephiroth's instead of Zack's. "You're going to set the bastard off again. Listen to me, it's not what it looks like. I didn't do this."

"No, Sephiroth did," Cloud growled, taking a step closer and making Zack tense. "Get _away_ from her!"

"She's still alive, but she's hurt bad," Zack continued as if Cloud hadn't spoken, still not budging from his spot next to Tifa's body. "I've got a phoenix down, that's all. I'm going to give it to her." He opened his right fist slightly, to reveal the familiar fluffy bit of down resting in his palm, the soft tufts matted with blood from his gloves.

"Give it to me, and get the hell away from her," Cloud insisted, eyes narrowed. His hands were trembling, making his sword shake visibly, but he couldn't force them to stop. He desperately did not want to have to fight Zack, had been struggling to avoid it all along, but it looked like he wasn't going to be given a choice.

"No," Zack shook his head, never taking his eyes off Cloud's. "No, Cloud, _listen_ to me. You have to trust me. It _wasn't me_. You do trust me, don't you?"

"Not when I can see Sephiroth staring out at me from your eyes," Cloud snarled, trying to calculate an angle of attack that would let him grab the phoenix down from Zack. If Tifa was still alive, then getting her mobile and out of here had to be his first priority. His heart was pounding so hard he was surprised it hadn't burst out of his chest, and his vision kept swimming as Sephiroth's power surged against his mind every time Zack's eyes glowed brighter.

His lover's answering smile was wry. "Take a look in a mirror, kid," the ex-SOLDIER replied. "You look as bad as I do. I know what you think is going on, Tifa told me everything. But it's not me, Cloud. I'm not the carrier."

"Then back off and let me help her!" Cloud demanded. Gods, Zack sounded so rational, so together, and it was definitely his voice and not Sephiroth's speaking. But that didn't mean Sephiroth wasn't controlling his words, and if Zack was truly innocent why was he refusing to move away from Tifa? No, as badly as Cloud wanted to believe his friend, he couldn't. Not when all the evidence was against him.

"No," Zack said again, his eyes narrowing. "I'm not moving one step until you calm down. Put the sword away, take a deep breath, and let's talk this out rationally. _After_ we clean out Tifa's potion supply to help her."

"I'll calm down when you get the fuck away from her!" Cloud countered, shifting his grip on his sword and changing his stance to ready for a lunge forward. Zack's eyes widened and he readied himself to dodge, but he was too late. He was able to deflect Cloud's blade from hitting him, but in the next instant Cloud had him pinned against the wall.

To Cloud's surprise, Zack didn't struggle more than was necessary to keep from being cut with the sword. "Cloud! It's _not me_ , damn it! It's you!" he shouted, fighting for control of the blade but making no move to draw his own.

"What?" Cloud was actually startled enough at the idea that he froze for a moment, standing there and staring blankly at his lover in shock. Zack gripped him by both shoulders, holding him still in case he started trying to fight again, looking him straight in the eyes.

"It's you," Zack told him, his voice heavy as he admitted the thing he'd most been trying to avoid. If he could have spared Cloud this pain, gods, he'd have done just about anything, but it didn't look like he had an alternative. "I've suspected it since Gongaga, and last night I pretended to be asleep and followed you after you went out. I think that's why he finally started killing people, he knew I was there and he was taunting me because I couldn't stop him without hurting you. It's you, Cloud. It's been you all along."

Zack hadn't wanted to believe, had resisted the idea so hard and for so long that he almost hadn't been able to accept it even when he'd seen the transformation for himself. But everything Tifa had told him about Cloud's reasons for thinking it was him held true for Cloud as well, with a few of Zack's own observations; the windows that were open in the morning when they'd been closed at night, the way Cloud was always more tired the mornings after Sephiroth was sighted... and of course, most damning of all, the fact that Cloud had been far more affected by Hojo's attempts to turn them into clones than Zack ever had.

"No." Cloud shook his head, his movements jerky and panicked. "No. You're lying." He shoved away from Zack, stumbling back and clutching at his pounding head with his off hand. "You're just saying what he wants me to hear. He's trying to fuck with my head again, that's all! Make me doubt myself, just like when... when he tried to tell me..."

He trailed off uncertainly, his sense of conviction fading into confusion as he realized what he was saying. "When he tried to tell me I wasn't really a SOLDIER..."

Except Sephiroth had been telling the truth, then. Cloud had never been a SOLDIER, and it _had_ been Zack who had been there in Nibelheim all those years ago. There was no doubt that Sephiroth enjoyed playing mindgames with Cloud, but in the end, _had_ he ever actually lied?

But that meant... if Zack was telling the truth, then... then that meant...

Everything started to go green around the edges as Cloud staggered, the blade of First Tsurugi clattering to the ground as he nearly went to his knees. Only ending up against the wall kept him on his feet. "No..."

Taking advantage of Cloud's confusion, Zack darted forward and slapped the phoenix down he held onto Tifa's shoulder, causing it to dissolve against her in a sparkle of magic. She coughed and choked on the blood in her lungs, her eyes flying open as she turned on her side and retched blood helplessly. She was hurt, _badly_ hurt, so badly he was shocked she was even still alive. Even most SOLDIERs would have had trouble overcoming wounds like those.

The phoenix down didn't do much more than heal enough to wake her and keep her alive. A Life 2 spell would have been a hell of a lot more useful, but Zack didn't have any materia. He'd run out of the house that morning when he'd heard Cloud take off, barely taking the time to snatch up his sword, let alone hunt down the materia Cloud had stashed around the place. Then he hadn't quite made it home again after talking to Tifa before he'd felt the sudden surge of Sephiroth's power and known something was wrong, so he hadn't had a chance to grab anything before bolting back here once again.

Coming in to see Tifa dangling off Sephiroth's blade had been one of the most horrifying moments of his life, and Zack would never forget it. His own entrance had distracted Sephiroth enough that Cloud had apparently regained some control, but as Zack had suspected it didn't seem the blond had been aware of what he was doing. Small wonder; they already knew Cloud had a tendency to block out any memories that his mind couldn't handle, and what could possibly be worse than this?

Still coughing, Tifa looked up at him, then past him at Cloud. Her eyes widened and her expression turned frightened. "Cloud!" she croaked, her voice thick with blood. "Oh gods! Not again..."

Following her gaze, Zack's own expression turned grim. As he'd feared, the shock was too much for Cloud. The younger man was flickering between himself and Sephiroth, creating a weird combination of traits from both of them at any given moment. The only constant was the glowing, slitted green eyes.

"Tifa, get behind me," Zack said, his voice tight with worry and fear. Cloud could still beat him about three out of five practice matches, and Zack was at a severe disadvantage here because he desperately did not want to hurt his friend. But he couldn't let Sephiroth get at Tifa again; Cloud would never be able to live with himself if he killed Tifa.

"Tifa..." The one thing that reached Cloud most strongly through the pain in his head was the look of fear in Tifa's eyes, something he'd never seen before when she looked at him. He'd always been her guardian, her protector, doing his best to watch over her even when they'd been children and she'd hardly spared him a thought. "Tifa... no, I would never hurt you," he tried to explain, taking a shaky step forward with his hand outstretched towards her.

Only to run into an invisible barrier that sprang up between them, halting his movement as effectively as any solid wall. Cloud's eyes widened as everything turned to shades of green, and he flattened his hand against the barrier. His other hand got no farther than the first had, and when he tried to move to one side to get around it he found that the invisible wall curved around him in a circle.

No, not invisible... _glass_. The glass walls of a mako tank, that he was somehow now standing inside. Shouting in fear and denial, Cloud pounded on the walls to no effect. Tifa looked terrified and was trying to crawl towards the door that led to the rest of the house, while Zack stood between her and Cloud with his sword out and a determined look on his face.

"Cloud," Zack said desperately, talking fast and loud as he prayed his words would reach his friend. The blond - silver more often than blond now - was bent almost double, his hands over his face as he shook. "Cloud, _fight_ him, damn it! You're stronger than this, stronger than he is! Beat him off!"

"No," Cloud whispered, anguished. He stared at Zack through the barrier that separated them. No, it couldn't be true. This couldn't be happening. Why couldn't he move? "Zack! Zack, help me!"

"Ho? So you're finally allowing yourself to be aware of what's going on?" Sephiroth's rich, deep voice echoed around him, and a moment later a gloved hand caressed his cheek in a sick parody of a lover's touch. Turning his head, Cloud found himself staring at Sephiroth, standing on the other side of the glass wall but somehow able to reach through and touch Cloud with no apparent effort. "I must remember to thank Zack before I kill him. This wouldn't have been nearly as satisfying if you'd persisted in blocking out everything."

"No!" Cloud shouted, and threw himself back away from the bastard's mocking touch. He fetched up against the other side of the tank almost immediately, and Sephiroth chuckled and withdrew his hand.

"All these weeks, and you still haven't learned," the silver-haired man purred at him. "You can fight all you like, Cloud, but you will be mine in the end. Every time you break through and wrest control from me again, the walls of your imprisonment grow a little thicker. Your strength of will is almost exhausted. Perhaps this time, you will not be able to get through at all."

" _No!_ " Pounding helplessly on the glass walls, Cloud watched as Sephiroth turned away from him to face the others.

Zack swore as the rapid shifts stabilized, and when the man in front of him looked up again it wasn't Cloud whose face he was wearing. "Tifa, get the kids and get out of here," he ordered her fiercely. " _Now_. I'll hold him off."

"Zack," Sephiroth murmured, a mocking, condescending smile spreading over his face as he straightened. "Don't tell me you're actually going to try to fight me? We both know how well that worked out the last few times you made the attempt. Are you really willing to kill Cloud to beat me?"

"No," Zack replied tightly. "I'm not going to have to, because Cloud's going to kick your ass six ways from Sunday and get control back again. Cloud!"

"Zack!" Cloud shouted back desperately, but he knew his friend couldn't hear him. Wherever he was, whatever had created this horrible facsimile of a mako tank, it had to be part of his own mind. Though it seemed as if he was watching events from outside, he knew it had to be only symbolic.

Clearly amused by both of them, Sephiroth laughed in delight. "At first I was disappointed that I wasn't able to break you, Zack," the tall man declared, his eyes flaring with cruel satisfaction. "I thought it would be ever so agonizing for Cloud to have to fight me knowing he was fighting you. But upon reflection, I do believe this is even more entertaining, now that he's actually paying attention."

The confirmation that Cloud _was_ aware of what was going on was all Zack needed to hear. "Cloud! Fight him, Cloud! You can do it, I believe in you!"

"How touching," Sephiroth sneered. He lifted his hand, and First Tsurugi jumped from the floor where Cloud had dropped it into his grasp. By the time his fingers closed around it the blade had transformed as well, and it was masamune that he held ready to strike.

Zack tensed and gripped his blade tighter, but Sephiroth surprised him. Instead of attacking the former SOLDIER, the silver-haired man lashed out to one side, too fast for Zack to block or deflect. The blade caught Tifa hard in her side as she attempted to crawl to the doorway, cutting deep and actually lifting her off the ground to fling her several feet away.

"NO!" Cloud screamed, throwing his whole body against the obstruction of the glass. She hit the ground and went limp, her eyes closed again and blood spraying everywhere. He wasn't sure if she was still alive or not, but it was a pretty good bet that she wouldn't be for long unless she got help.

Help that Sephiroth clearly was not intending to allow her to get, as he moved to position himself between Zack and Tifa. "Damn it, Sephiroth, what the hell do you want?" Zack shouted, shifting his grip on his sword and preparing to charge.

"Revenge," the madman whispered, his eyes glittering with more than just the mako. "Revenge for myself, revenge for mother, revenge against all of humanity. This will be the end."

He lashed out again, masamune moving almost too fast even for Zack to follow, and the brunet was only barely able to parry the strike. He countered quickly, but Sephiroth blocked him easily, laughing.

Within a few exchanges, what little had remained of the furniture had been completely destroyed, and Zack knew he was utterly outmatched. Even without the handicap of the fact that he didn't want to hurt Cloud, he would have been hard pressed in this fight. As it was, he didn't have a chance and the best he could hope for was to hold the bastard off long enough for Tifa to escape. Which wasn't going to happen while she was unconscious.

He tried repeatedly to take the fight outside, blasting right through the wall and trying to lure Sephiroth out after him, but every time he did the former general simply turned away from him and moved towards Tifa again, clearly intending to finish what he'd started. After the third attempt, when Zack was only barely able to make it back inside in time to stop Sephiroth from cleaving her clear in half, he gave up trying.

Still completely trapped in his own mind, the walls of the mako tank barely even vibrating under the force of his blows, Cloud shouted and screamed his anger and fear, all to no avail. He couldn't free himself, couldn't make Zack hear him, couldn't even distract Sephiroth from what he was doing. Watching Sephiroth toy with Zack the way a cat would toy with a mouse was destroying him; he'd have looked away if he could, but no matter which way he turned in the tank he found himself facing the battle. It was even worse than the way Sephiroth had played with him in their previous fights, because Cloud could tell Zack was desperately holding back in an attempt not to hurt him.

"Zack!" he all but sobbed, knowing his lover couldn't hear him but unable to simply remain still and watch. "Zack! Damn it, stop holding back! Forget about me, just kill the bastard! Zack!" Maybe if Cloud died, that would finally end the cycle once and for all. Maybe it was his link to Cloud that allowed Sephiroth to keep returning, time after time.

Chuckling, Sephiroth easily parried another blow from Zack and retaliated with a strike that drew a shallow cut across the former SOLDIER's chest from shoulder to hip. Zack was already bleeding from a dozen such cuts; almost any of them could have been a killing blow if Sephiroth had chosen to make it so, and Zack hadn't even been able to scratch the bastard.

"You would do better to simply give up and let it be over, you know," Sephiroth taunted him maliciously. "You're only drawing out the inevitable, and for what? To make Cloud suffer more? He _is_ suffering, I assure you of that. He's begging you to finish it, to kill me and him with me."

"No!" Zack snarled, driving forward and actually managing to score a light hit across Sephiroth's upper left arm. "Odin's blood, Cloud, you always did give up too damn easy! _Fight_ him, gods damn it! I won't kill you, so you'd damn well better beat him off! You can do it!"

"And you always encouraged him, no matter how much of a failure he proved himself to be," Sephiroth goaded him. "He washed out of SOLDIER because his mind was too weak to bear the strain of the mako, yet you continued to encourage him. He fell prey to Hojo's experiments, becoming completely helpless, yet you persisted in attempting to cajole him back to sanity. He couldn't even deal with reality without pretending he was you, unable to face the truth of his own pathetic existence, yet you tell him you're proud of him. And now this. Are you just that much of a masochist, Zack? Or is it sadism that drives you? Do you enjoy seeing him struggle endlessly in an attempt to live up to your impossible belief in him, even though you know he's a failure at heart?"

For a moment Cloud forgot to struggle, shocked by Sephiroth's words. Was that why he'd failed to become a SOLDIER? If that was true, if Zack had known it, why had the older boy continued to encourage him to work hard and try again? _Was_ he truly destined to be a failure?

"No!" Zack growled, infuriated by the suggestion and knowing all too well what sort of doubts were probably eating at Cloud thanks to the bastard's insinuations. He knew how fragile Cloud's self esteem could be, and even now when he was so much stronger than he'd been as a kid there were moments when Zack thought one good blow might shatter everything Cloud had struggled to achieve. One good blow like the one Sephiroth had just delivered, if Zack couldn't convince his friend and lover otherwise.

"Cloud is not a failure, and he never was!" Zack replied, blocking and parrying Sephiroth's strikes as he spoke, doing his best to keep the fight at the opposite end of the bar from where Tifa still lay sprawled over the floor. "Anyone with the strength of will to pull himself _up_ a sword blade to defeat an opponent ten times stronger than him, anyone who could fight his way back from severe mako poisoning multiple times, anyone who could face the weaknesses of his past and _still_ go on to defeat his worst nightmare, that is not someone who is a failure at heart!"

Sephiroth lunged unexpectedly, and Zack choked as masamune caught him low on the side, running straight through his abdomen. Knowing what was coming, he braced himself as Sephiroth twisted the blade and wrenched it sideways, tearing it back out of Zack's body. It was a blow that would have killed anyone but a 1st Class, but Zack somehow managed to stay on his feet with his sword held ready. He could not afford to lose this fight, or the entire world was lost as well.

"Cloud!" he shouted, putting every bit of his belief in and love of the other man into his voice. "Cloud, listen to me! I believe in you, I have _always_ believed in you, and I always will! You are stronger than this, stronger than he is! _Fight him_!"

Screaming his defiance, Cloud braced himself against the back wall and kicked repeatedly at the glass barrier that kept him walled away in a corner of his own mind. It shuddered under the force of the blows, but refused to give way. He _had_ to break through. He had to prove Sephiroth wrong, to live up to Zack's belief in him, or what was the point of his entire life up to this moment?

Movement at one side attracted the attention of all three of them at the same moment. Sephiroth half turned, and Cloud saw to his horror that Marlene and Denzel had emerged from wherever they'd been hidden. They'd each grabbed one of Tifa's arms and were hauling her backwards, trying to get her out the door and to safety. In the distraction of the fight they'd managed to move her almost all the way there, but now they'd been spotted.

Knowing what was coming, Zack felt his heart leap into his throat. "No!" he shouted, and flung himself headlong across the room to try to put himself between Sephiroth and the kids. The silver-haired man was already moving, sword held ready as he lunged towards the helpless children, intent on their destruction.

If the idea that his body would be used to kill Zack, to hurt Tifa, had been awful, then this was simply unthinkable. Horrified, Cloud watched as the whole scene seemed to slow down until the seconds passed at a crawl, allowing him to clearly see that Sephiroth was going to reach the kids first. They were going to die by _his_ hand, as surely as if he'd killed them himself.

Zack was a SOLDIER, a fighter who had chosen his path with full knowledge that he would probably die one day in a battle. Tifa was a warrior, who fought despite her disadvantages because she believed in her cause strongly enough to be willing to die for it. Both of them were capable and strong, had made their decisions knowing what they were getting into, and were able to hold their own even against Sephiroth for a short period of time.

But the kids... Marlene and Denzel might as well have been helpless infants for all they could hope to defend themselves against Sephiroth. They might not have been his children by blood, but Cloud had loved and protected them, and sworn to himself that he would never let harm come to either of them again.

From somewhere, somehow, he found a source of strength he hadn't even known he possessed. With a roar of defiance, he gathered everything he had and lashed out at the walls of his cage one last time, the impact shattering the glass like the most delicate of crystal panes. He felt the destruction reverberate through his entire body as he snapped back into control of himself. His yell became abruptly audible, his voice high and hoarse with fear and anguish.

Zack had never been so grateful in his life to see the bright blond colour of Cloud's hair appear as Sephiroth's mocking smirk turned to irritation and vanished all in an instant. Cloud stumbled as he tried to stop his momentum before he reached the two children; he still held First Tsurugi in an attack position, and if he struck them he could easily kill them by accident.

There was a clatter of metal meeting wood, and then strong hands gripped him by the shoulders and brought his forward motion to a halt. Cloud's brief stumble and hesitation had given Zack the instant he needed to get ahead of him, and he'd dropped his sword and interposed himself between his lover and the kids without a second thought. First Tsurugi hit him hard across the chest, but he just grunted and braced himself against the blow, absorbing the damage as only a SOLDIER could. He was nearly as badly injured as Tifa now, only barely managing to stay on his feet, but it didn't matter. The fight was over.

Cloud wasn't so certain of that, clinging to Zack with all his strength as if holding on tightly enough would prevent Sephiroth from taking him over again. He could still feel the bastard's power within him, struggling for dominance again, and one slip on his part would let Sephiroth retake control.

Slowly Zack lowered them both to the ground, letting Cloud huddle against him practically in his lap as they sat together on the floor. He wrapped his arms around the blond in turn, rocking him gently and murmuring soothing words into his ear. "It's okay, Cloud, it's over, you did it, it's okay," he assured his shaking lover. "I knew you would, I'm so proud of you, I always believed in you. Always."

"You shouldn't," Cloud croaked hoarsely. "Gods. All this time I thought it was you. How could I not have realized? How could I have let him do this? Zack..."

"Did you think I was aware of it and hiding it from you?" Zack asked him with a raised eyebrow, though he kept his voice low and steady. "Of course not. How can you blame yourself for not realizing what was happening, if you thought I was equally unaware? He's clever, Cloud, maybe smarter than you and me both put together. He played you like the master manipulator he is. But we're more stubborn than he is, and that's what'll win in the end."

"No." Cloud shook his head, his face buried in Zack's shoulder, unable to look his friend in the eyes. "No, Zack, it's not over, he's still _there_! You have to finish it, you _have_ to. Just kill me..."

"Absolutely not," Zack cut him off fiercely. "Damn it, Cloud, stop trying to give up! I will not kill you, not under any circumstances, so just get that through your thick skull right now! Either you beat him, or we all die. You're stronger than you think you are!"

"Don't you get it?" Cloud finally looked up at him, and even though his eyes were still eerily green the torment in his expression was clear. "Don't you understand? He's just waiting for another chance, he'll break through any moment and he's stronger every time. Next time I won't be able to get free!"

"Then we'll just have to make sure there isn't a next time," Zack declared, his tone brooking no argument. "First of all, you need to calm down. The more agitated and panicked you get, the easier it is for him to take control. Just take a couple of deep breaths, get hold of yourself, and calm down. We need to help Tifa."

"Tifa!" Cloud swore and pushed himself up, looking over Zack's shoulder to where Marlene and Denzel were huddled around Tifa's body. "Oh gods, is she still alive?"

"Yes," Denzel answered him cautiously, but he looked highly suspicious as he spoke to Cloud. "Are you... are you going to go crazy again?"

"Cloud," Marlene put in, clinging to Denzel's arm and looking at him uncertainly. "Cloud... you won't hurt us?"

Shuddering, Cloud turned his face back into Zack's shoulder, unable to bear the hurt and accusation and _fear_ in their eyes. "No," he said brokenly. "No, I won't hurt you. Zack's going to help Tifa, and then you're all going to go somewhere safe." And he would go find an appropriately tall building to throw himself off of, if that was what it took. He couldn't risk even the possibility that Sephiroth would regain control and make him hurt the people he loved most in all the world.

Sensing the direction of his thoughts, Zack shook him roughly. "Stop that," he ordered his lover, his eyes flashing. "Don't you _dare_ even think what I know you're thinking, Cloud. Would you have let me..." Glancing at the kids, he changed his wording slightly. "Would you have let me do something drastic, if it _had_ been me and I'd realized what was happening? Isn't that exactly why you didn't tell me what you suspected, because you were afraid I would? What in Hades' name makes you think I'm going to let you do it?"

"I have to," Cloud whispered, shaking again. "I have to, Zack, don't you see? I can't live with the idea that I could hurt them, hurt you..."

"You're _not going to_ ," Zack cut him off. "I'll beat it into your head until you believe me, if I have to. Nobody's going to get hurt any more, and nobody is going to die... except Sephiroth, once we find a way to get him out of you. In the meantime, you _need_ to _calm down_."

Taking a deep breath, Cloud struggled for control, holding to Zack's words the same way he was clinging to the older man's body. He'd always trusted Zack, followed where his friend led, known that no matter what happened Zack would get them through it. That was why he'd chosen to 'be' Zack, when he'd first emerged from the mako haze he'd been lost in for so long, because he'd so desperately wanted that strength for himself.

Could he, dared he, trust in his friend this time? With so much at stake?

Did he have a choice?

When he cautiously opened his eyes again, he was unutterably relieved to see colour other than green saturating his vision. Looking up, he saw that Zack's eyes had gone back to their usual indigo hue, albeit still glowing brightly with mako.

"That's better," Zack said with a crooked smile, tapping one finger on Cloud's brow between his once again blue eyes. "Now, stay that way. Just keep your cool, kid. We'll figure out a way to get through this, one way or another."

"Tifa," Cloud said hoarsely, turning back to her again. She was still lying motionless between Marlene and Denzel, but her chest was rising and falling in tiny little movements that told him she yet lived. "Marlene, Denzel, you know where she keeps the potions. Go get them, all of them. Hurry."

Obviously torn between wanting to stay to 'protect' Tifa and wanting to get away from the threat that Cloud now represented, the two children exchanged glances and nodded, scrambling to their feet. Zack dug in his belt pouch for another phoenix down, grateful that he'd long ago fallen into the habit of _always_ making sure he had at least five of the things on him or within reach at all times, even when sleeping. Tifa would be okay, the kids were fine, Zack would heal well enough, and Cloud - for the moment at least - was in control of himself.

Now if only they could keep things that way long enough to find a way to get Sephiroth _out_ of the younger man, before Zack was forced to either break his promise and kill Cloud, or let the bastard win.


	20. Chapter 20

The bar had been well and truly trashed, so once Tifa got the kids tucked away somewhere safe - carefully not telling either Zack or especially Cloud where she'd sent them - they ended up back at the church. None of them knew quite what to say or do. Tifa sat at the table, with Zack straddling the other chair backwards and facing her. Cloud paced ceaselessly from one side of the tiny room to the other, struggling to control himself with every step he took.

"Kid, seriously, sit down already," Zack ordered him, propping his head on one hand and tracking Cloud with his eyes. "You're making me exhausted just watching you." The potions Tifa kept on hand at the 7th Heaven had been enough to get them both mobile again, and a couple of quick applications of Cure magic once they'd reached the materia hidden in the church had taken care of the rest. The only outward signs that any of it had ever happened were the damage to the bar and Cloud's constant restlessness.

"I can't," Cloud replied tersely, his arms folded tightly across his chest and his clenched fists tucked under his arms. "You don't understand how close to the surface he is. It's like now that I know he's there and I'm not blocking the memories any more, I can't block _him_ either. I have to have something to focus on."

Rummaging in the bag she'd brought from home, Tifa pulled out small bottle and tossed it to Zack. He caught it and checked the label, then raised an eyebrow at her. This was premium whiskey, the kind that was practically worth its weight in gil.

"What?" she answered his questioning look defensively. "I think I've bloody well earned it. And so have both of you. Cloud?"

He glanced at it, and his expression turned incredulous. "Tifa, I'm hanging onto my control by the skin of my teeth, and you want to get me drunk?"

"It'll take a hell of a lot more than a third of that bottle to get either of you drunk, though I'll probably be a little tipsy," Tifa retorted. "Anyway alcohol is a downer. In small quantities it might help you calm down. Well, small for _your_ metabolism, anyway." More than anything, she wanted Cloud calm. He was skittish and edgy, and every time something made him jump the mako glow in his eyes got brighter for a moment. She'd seen him turn into Sephiroth right before her eyes _twice_ today, and she didn't think she could handle it a third time.

She didn't think any of them would _survive_ a third time.

"She's got a point, though I think I may be on your side in this one," Zack said, sloshing the contents of the bottle thoughtfully. "Doesn't mean I might not have a glass myself. My nerves could use some calming too. Gods, what a day."

"What I don't understand is, why now?" Tifa asked, standing to get glasses for herself and Zack. "Not why today, I understand that he's been wearing away at your will all this time. I mean, why _now_? The one thing that really made it seem like it had to be Zack was the timing. He showed up that first night you got out of the lab, that can't have been coincidence. Can it?"

"Who knows?" Zack shrugged and sighed, accepting the glasses and pouring a generous measure for both of them. "Maybe something Cloud was exposed to in the lab triggered something dormant in his mind. Maybe all the memories brought back by seeing me again opened a crack in his defences somewhere, giving Sephiroth a chance he'd been waiting for. Maybe he'd been recovering all this time from his last fight with you as Kadaj, and the timing really was a coincidence."

"Or maybe it's some kind of critical mass thing," Cloud suggested with a sense of dark amusement, glancing over at them. "Me alone wasn't enough Jenova cells to work with, and you alone wasn't either, but with both of us together so often he finally had a chance. He did say he tried to break you first."

"Could be. We may never know exactly how or why," Zack agreed. Tipping his glass back, he drained half the contents in one gulp, not taking the time to savour the rich flavour the way he should have. The burn of it going down felt good, something real and solid in the midst of all this confusion. The second sip he took was much smaller, though. He didn't really want to get drunk, not when he might have to face off against Sephiroth again at any moment. Heal materia could burn the remaining alcohol out of his system in an emergency, it was really just another kind of poison, but it wouldn't keep him from suffering the damage already done to his reflexes and coordination.

"What about Hojo's notes, what did Rufus say?" Tifa asked Cloud. "Did you actually get that far?" He'd been gone for some time before he'd suddenly staggered back into the bar and transformed into Sephiroth, but who knew what he'd been doing in the meantime?

"Rufus. Gods." Half laughing despite himself, Cloud rubbed at his face with his hands. "No wonder Elena shot at me. Given the way I was acting, I must have been channelling Sephiroth even then. Not completely, or they wouldn't have given me the time of day, but enough to scare the crap out of her. I hope I didn't hurt her too much."

"Great. Sounds like they're not likely to be inclined to cooperate with us," Tifa said, wincing at the thought of poor Elena. She had a certain sense of kinship with the blonde Turk; they were both women in a profession dominated by men, and both of them had been forced to endure the attentions of Don Corneo in the past. Shooting at Cloud when he was halfway to being Sephiroth must have taken a lot of guts; Tifa ought to know, she'd just faced the same situation herself.

"They might," Cloud replied. "Rufus did say that destroying Sephiroth permanently instead of just chasing him off again was something he wanted, too. But I don't know if they're going to have answers for us fast enough." He uncrossed his arms, and looked down at his fist. He was shaking, hard enough for the tremors to be visible even to Tifa and Zack, and he couldn't make himself stop. Whether it was fear, weariness, or just the strain of keeping control, he wasn't sure. "I don't know how long I can hold him off."

"As long as you have to," Zack said, confidence in his voice. "I have faith in you, Cloud. He seems to get triggered any time you get overly emotional, so as long as you stay calm you should be fine."

"Or until I fall asleep," Cloud retorted. "Most of the times he's appeared have been when I was sleeping, Zack! How can I fight him if I'm not even conscious? I can stay awake for a day or two, but not for long."

"True," Zack conceded, frowning. He hadn't thought of that, but it was a fact that sleepwalking was the most common method Sephiroth seemed to have for controlling Cloud. And once he was _in_ control, Cloud might not be able to get it back again. They couldn't count on a situation like Marlene and Denzel being in danger to happen every time, nor did Zack particularly want to have to.

"I'll call Rufus," Cloud decided, reaching for his phone. "I didn't get a chance to really finish talking to him. If I make it clear enough to him how urgent this is, maybe he'll actually be helpful." He smiled sourly as it rang. "Once Sephiroth is done tormenting me by killing everyone important to me, I'm pretty sure anything and everything connected to Shinra is likely to be his next target. That ought to provide some incentive."

He didn't actually have Rufus' private phone number, didn't even know for certain if the man had such a thing. But he did have the number of someone who would be able to get Rufus on the phone.

"Talk to me, yo," Reno's voice said when the ringing stopped.

Cloud didn't bother with social preliminaries. "Put Rufus on the phone," he ordered coldly.

"Oh, shit," was Reno's apprehensive response. "Boss!" Cloud waited impatiently as there was a muffled discussion in the background, then the sound of the phone being handed off.

To his irritation it was not Rufus who spoke next, but Tseng. "That was a fairly impressive display this morning," the head of the Turks said, as calmly as if he was discussing a particularly interesting theatre performance.

"Tseng," Cloud nearly spat, bristling. "I don't have time for this. Let me talk to Rufus. You can't possibly argue that I might hurt him over the _phone_."

"No, and believe me I'm pleased by your consideration in calling this time instead of demolishing our door," the Turk replied dryly. "We're no longer at Healin, in case you were wondering. I've rethought the wisdom of having people aware of Rufus' location." Cloud flushed, embarrassed at the reminder of his irrational behaviour.

He hesitated, torn for a moment, but finally decided that he wanted to know. "Is Elena...?"

"She's fine," Tseng assured him, and Cloud thought the man's tone warmed a degree or two towards him for asking. "Nothing a potion or three couldn't heal, though unfortunately there's nothing we can do to help the headache from the concussion." Cloud winced, but ploughed onwards.

"Good. Now let me talk to Rufus!" he demanded, going back to his original objective now that he'd been reassured that he hadn't hurt the woman too seriously. He had nothing personal against Elena, and _any_ damage he'd done due to Sephiroth's influence was something that would eat at him for a long time to come.

"He's unavailable, I'm afraid," Tseng said smoothly. "Anything you need to say to him can be relayed through me."

Cursing under his breath, Cloud considered his options. For all he knew Rufus really _was_ unavailable, though he was fairly certain Tseng was just stonewalling him. He knew how stubborn the Turk could be when it came to doing his duty. Did he have the time, and more importantly the patience, to argue with the man?

"Fine," he growled, admitting defeat. "I need to know what's being done with the records I gave you. I need an answer now, not next week or even tomorrow. I'm not going to be able to hold Sephiroth off much longer." He didn't mention that the battle was internal rather than external, but after what he'd done that morning he didn't doubt that Tseng suspected the truth anyway.

"Then perhaps you should have shared the information with us back when this investigation began," Tseng replied, his tone cool again. "Even if we'd like to, and in this case we actually would, we cannot provide you answers instantaneously. The information has been sent to our most competent scientists, but they've informed us that it will take some time to sort through all of it to make any sense of it."

"Right, because Shinra and the Turks have always been so forthcoming and upfront with information to me in emergency situations," Cloud snapped back, seething. "Of course, there was that little matter of the piece of Jenova you had last time around..."

Watching the conversation, Zack had grown progressively more nervous as Cloud got more and more agitated. He could sense the struggle for control within his lover by tracking the ebb and flow of the pressure Sephiroth was exerting on _him_ , and he didn't like what he was feeling. The headache that pressed at the back of his eyes was a warning he was learning not to ignore.

Standing, he snatched the phone abruptly out of Cloud's hand. "Here, give me that," he commanded the startled blond, resting a hand on his lover's shoulder and squeezing reassuringly. "Who is this? Tseng?"

"And you must be Zack," Tseng replied, apparently unperturbed by the sudden change in who he was talking to. "Reno and Rude mentioned your miraculous reappearance. I must say, as impressed as I was by your file when I was organizing the attempt to recapture you, your return from the dead is more impressive still."

"Yeah, thanks for that," Zack answered him dryly, his eyes flashing. If not for this man, he wouldn't have nearly died in the first place. It was the Turks who had hounded him most consistently, refusing to give up and actually acting in a coordinated manner instead of haphazardly like the troopers. That it was a trooper who had shot him in the end was a minor factor.

"Look," he growled. "I trust the Turks about as far as I can throw the lot of you, and I've got even less love for anyone whose name includes 'Shinra'. The only reason we're asking you for help at all is because you're our last option, unless we think of something brilliant in the next hour or two." Ordinarily Zack would never have even contemplated laying out his desperation like this, but they _were_ down to the wire. It was all or nothing, and Zack would be damned if it was nothing. "Either give us what we need, or you're probably next on the list to die. It's that simple."

"Zack..." Cloud's voice was low, but it had a note of warning in it. Waving him off impatiently, Zack ignored him.

To his surprise, the regret in Tseng's voice when he spoke seemed genuine. "If I could, I would," he said. "My job is to protect Rufus at all costs, and while I'm happy to lay my life down for him if that is what is necessary, I'm under no illusions that my death would actually serve to prolong his life by more than a few minutes at most. You may not trust us, but trust me in this, Zack; we are far too aware that Cloud is our only hope against Sephiroth. If what I saw this morning means what I think it does, then I fully understand the urgency of the situation. But I cannot produce a miracle at the snap of my fingers, and neither can Rufus - much as he might wish it were so."

"Damn it," Zack swore, kicking at the nearest wall in frustration. Not hard enough to break through it, but hard enough that the boards groaned in warning, and he winced. "How long?"

"A few days at the very least," Tseng replied, his voice still just as steady as it had been at the beginning of the conversation. If the prospect of his imminent torture and death at Sephiroth's hands bothered him, it didn't show. "Quite possibly weeks. Assuming there is an answer to be found at all. Everyone involved has been given proper... incentive to work quickly, but they are only human. I'm sorry."

"Zack!" Cloud gripped his arm; Zack glanced at him and shook his head briefly, before returning his attention to the call.

"Fuck," he said succinctly and with feeling. "We don't have that much time, damn it."

"I will contact one of you the moment we have answers for you, or even a suggestion of an answer," Tseng assured him. "Until then, there's nothing further we can do for you. And I would appreciate it if all future contact is by phone rather than in person. I'm sure you understand."

With that he hung up, and Zack swore creatively and at length. His fist clenched around the phone involuntarily, and before he realized what he was doing the casing had cracked under the pressure in three different places. Quickly he eased up before it was destroyed completely, since for all he knew that phone was the only way the Turks had of reaching them.

" _Zack!_ " Cloud fisted a hand in the front of his lover's shirt and drove the older man back against the wall, catching him completely by surprise and finally gaining the brunet's full attention. "Will you please take your own fucking advice and calm down? I'm not the only one who can trigger him by getting pissed off!"

Looking into Cloud's eyes - green, cat-pupil eyes - from inches away, Zack swallowed and took a deep breath. "Yeah. Sorry, kid," he said hoarsely, fighting his anger and frustration into submission.

Now that he wasn't focused so completely on the conversation with Tseng, he could feel the pounding headache that meant his own eyes were probably just as green, and this time his quiet curse was for himself. Of course he already knew that Sephiroth responded to his emotions as well as Cloud's, they'd proven that in Gongaga. The bastard might not be able to get past Zack's strong sense of self to take him over, but Zack was still connected to him, and through him to Cloud.

Looking around, Zack found Tifa standing warily near the door, clearly ready to bolt. "Getting ready to clear out?" he asked her wryly, not blaming her in the least.

"You both looked like you might change, for a second there," she answered guardedly, slowly relaxing as both men's eyes returned to their respective shades of blue. "I take it the news wasn't good?"

"Not exactly, no," Zack said, sighing and pinching the bridge of his nose. Tifa started to head back towards the table, but Zack shook his head and grabbed a startled Cloud by the wrist, hauling him towards the door. "I've got a better idea, come on."

He led his unresisting lover out into the main part of the church, Tifa following along at a cautious but curious distance. "Where are we going?" Cloud asked, brow furrowed in confusion.

"Right here," Zack answered, coming to a halt in the field of flowers just beside the pool of still water. Letting go of Cloud's wrist, he dropped down to sprawl out over the flowers, leaning back on his hands and turning his face up to the weak sunlight that came in through the broken roof.

"Why... oh." Cloud realized he didn't need to ask the question. He already felt a little calmer, and as he settled down beside Zack and the familiar scent of the flowers enveloped him the tense muscles in his shoulders began to relax.

"What are you two doing?" Tifa asked, standing across the pool and staring at both of them with her hands on her hips.

"It's the garden," Zack explained, opening his eyes and looking at her. "Maybe it's something inherent in this place, maybe it's something of Aerith left behind, or maybe it's just the memories we both associate with being here, but it's soothing. I think we'll do better sitting out here than in there."

"Ah." Tifa could understand that. Though the church didn't hold quite the same meaning for her that it obviously did for the two men, she'd loved the atmosphere of the garden from the moment Cloud had first shown it to her. She only wished she could have seen it when Aerith had been here, tending the flowers.

Briefly she debated going back inside to retrieve the whiskey, but finally decided against it. She sank down to sit in the flowers as well, silently apologizing for crushing them as she pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them. Cloud had stretched out flat on his back, his arms spread at his sides as if he was trying to present the greatest possible surface area to the garden's touch. And, she noted with a tiny pang, Zack's fingers were tangled with Cloud's, connecting the two men. She had no doubt Cloud was taking as much comfort from that touch as he was from the flowers.

Why hadn't she ever been able to do that for him? Even now she wished she could go sit on his other side and hold that hand, offering her own comfort... but the truth was, she was too afraid to get that close to him while he was this unstable. She could never be afraid of _Cloud_ , but she was very much afraid of the madman the blond apparently carried inside him.

Afraid of him, but not to the point where she wouldn't face him down if it was necessary. She'd done it before, and unless they could find a way to solve this quickly, she might well have to do it again.

"We need to find a way to buy some time," she said, reluctant to break the almost peaceful silence that had fallen but knowing it had to be dealt with sooner rather than later. "As much as I hate to even suggest this, we could find somewhere secluded to lock Cloud up until Rufus has an answer for us? That's what I was going to propose we do with Zack this morning, Cloud, but you didn't give me a chance to finish what I was saying."

"Yeah, right," Cloud snorted, at the same moment that Zack shook his head and said, "It'll never work."

"Why not?" she wanted to know, frowning.

"We might, just barely, be able to find somewhere strong enough to contain someone with as much mako enhancement as Cloud has," Zack explained wearily. "But Sephiroth? As powerful as he is now? I doubt it."

"I don't think you really understand how strong he is," Cloud added softly, looking at her with a gaze so haunted she winced. "You were watching the last fight I had with him from the Sierra, you saw it for yourself. He was toying with me, Tifa. I won that battle out of sheer desperation. If he'd gotten serious right from the beginning, I wouldn't have had a chance. They don't build prisons to hold people that strong."

"Who said it had to be a prison?" Tifa countered. "What about the lab you found Zack in? It was miles underground. If we collapsed the entrance behind you..."

"Maybe," Zack conceded. "Though how we'd get him out of there again might be problematic. There's another issue to consider, though. If we do succeed in locking him away somewhere, Sephiroth will probably start to torture Cloud instead. I'd kind of like him to be in one piece mentally when this is over."

"You and me both," Cloud muttered, and Zack squeezed his fingers. He shuddered at the idea of being locked away, trapped in his own mind with Sephiroth for days or maybe weeks. No, there probably wouldn't be much left of him after that. He'd become a lot stronger than the weak-willed sixteen-year-old who had faced down his hero in the reactor, but he already knew that Sephiroth's ability to invade his mind was a force to be reckoned with. Even before the bastard had started using him to manifest.

"Damn, you're right," Tifa conceded defeat. She didn't particularly relish the idea of driving Cloud mad, either. She'd spent weeks sitting by him in Mideel, trying to coax him out of the comatose state he'd fallen into after travelling through the Lifestream, and she had no wish to repeat the experience. She couldn't imagine how much worse the thought must be to Zack, who had spent a _year_ with Cloud in that state. "So what _are_ we going to do?"

Cloud got a funny look in his eyes, and opened his mouth. "Don't even suggest it," Zack told him fiercely.

Blinking, Cloud frowned at his lover. "What?" he asked, confused. How could Zack possibly have known what he was about to say? And why the strong objection?

"Don't even _think_ about suggesting that we kill you, or let you kill yourself," Zack clarified. "It's not an option. If you try it I won't even give Aerith a chance to kick you out this time, I will hunt you down in the Lifestream and drag you back personally, just so I can knock some sense into you. Got it?"

Despite himself, Cloud's lips twitched with something resembling a smile. "I wasn't going to suggest that," he said mildly. "Though it might have been my _next_ idea."

"Oh." Zack deflated slightly, and gave him a sheepish look. "Well, what is it, then?"

"The crater," Cloud replied, sitting up again so he could look at both Zack and Tifa. "Maybe the answer is up there after all." He felt better, calmer, more focused than he had been since the moment he'd woken up that morning. Woken up? With a shudder, he realized he had no memory of actually getting out of bed and getting dressed, just of suddenly finding himself looking at the blood. If he'd looked back as he'd left, would he have found more bloody footprints trailing him out again? Or had the blood vanished with Sephiroth?

It didn't matter now. "You said that when we were trapped in the Lifestream in the crater, you and I _and_ Sephiroth were all there," he continued the thought. "Because in that form we're all essentially spirits, you must have been seeing him the same way I do in my nightmares, as a separate presence rather than just something that's taken over me. If we can coax him into meeting us there again..."

"...then killing him there shouldn't affect you at all," Zack mused thoughtfully. "And might just finish him off forever. Yeah, maybe. There's just one problem; we'd have a serious time limit. You were lost almost immediately, and I don't think I lasted more than a few minutes before my sense of self started to fray as well. It won't do us much good to beat him off if we then get lost in the Lifestream. Assuming we can beat him _before_ we get lost. All he'd have to do would be to not show up for a few minutes, then he could probably walk off with _either_ of our bodies."

"He'll face us," Cloud said with grim certainty. "He's not just interested in finding a way to come back, he's obsessed with torturing us first. Me in particular, because I'm the one that stopped him every time. If there's one thing we can count on, it's that his need for revenge will outweigh his common sense. That's how I've managed to defeat him up until now, because he refuses to get serious right off the bat and he keeps underestimating me just a little too much."

"Wait," Tifa broke in, looking back and forth between them in confusion. "You're not seriously suggesting that you're going to go up to the North Crater and jump into the Lifestream, are you?"

"Not jump in," Cloud shook his head. "All I had to do last time was touch it. And it took me a few minutes before it pulled me under completely, remember?" he added to Zack. "I was fighting it to stay aware of my body, but if I concentrated on just holding myself together and remaining coherent instead, I bet I could stay conscious for a while. Maybe long enough to make a difference."

"You're crazy!" Tifa informed him. "Completely out of your mind! Almost as much as you will be if you actually follow through on this. Cloud, you've suffered total mako poisoning _twice_ in your life already. You know you're susceptible to it! How could you risk exposing yourself to it again? What if you can't fight your way free of it this time?"

"Then I'll die," Cloud acknowledged grimly. "But this time Sephiroth will die with me. At least, he will if I have anything to say about it."

"If _we_ have anything to say about it," Zack corrected him firmly. "It's the best idea I've heard yet, and I think it's pretty much our only option. If us being lost in the Lifestream is the price to beating the bastard once and for all, then I'll pay it and pay it gladly. Which does _not_ mean I'm not going to do everything in my power to find a way back into my body once it's over, and you'd damn well better do the same!" He fixed Cloud with a stern look.

"Since I've no doubt you'd be willing to break every bone in my body if that was what it took to drag me back after you, I don't think I have a choice," Cloud replied dryly, and smiled slightly at him.

"Then I guess we'd better call Cid again, because I don't think Kinya can carry all three of us," Tifa declared. She almost laughed when they turned identical blank expressions on her.

"Three of us?" Zack repeated, clearly confused.

"Yes, three of us," Tifa agreed, her tone brooking no argument. "You don't think I'm letting you leave me out of this, do you?"

"Tifa..." Cloud started forbiddingly, his brows drawing together in a scowl, but she headed him off.

"Oh, no, don't you 'Tifa' me," she scolded him. "I am every bit as much a part of this as you two. I was there at that first fight too, remember? And I've been there at every fight since. I stopped the others from interfering in your fight with Kadaj because I knew you needed to face him, but this time it's not just about you. I may not be a SOLDIER or even as strong as one, but I can certainly give you backup. With three of us, we'll have a better chance of beating him quickly enough to make it back to our bodies."

"You'll be lost almost instantly, Tifa!" Zack protested. "You don't understand what it's like in the Lifestream, how the mako affects you..."

"Oh, no? You don't think so?" Tifa scowled at him, her eyes flashing. "Who exactly do you think it was who talked Cloud through his last bout of mako poisoning? And I don't mean by sitting at his bedside, either. I got pulled into the Lifestream in Mideel at the same time he did, when Ultima WEAPON attacked the town and blew a hole halfway to the centre of the planet. If I didn't let it tear me apart then, I'm certainly not going to let it now."

"You survived a trip through the Lifestream?" Zack exclaimed, startled. He glanced at Cloud for confirmation, and the blond nodded.

"I keep forgetting you were there," Cloud murmured. If Tifa could have thrown something at him she would have; as it was, she had to settle for glaring at him. "Hey, I was a little lost in my own head at the time, I only have vague memories of you being there at all," he protested his innocence. "I don't remember most of what actually happened in there, just that the result was that I had a lot more of my real memories when I woke up."

"Damn." Zack looked at Tifa with new respect. "You'd have made a hell of a SOLDIER, Tifa. If you could hold yourself together through something like that, you'd have gone all the way to 1st Class, no question."

She flushed, pleased by the compliment, even though she had less than no desire to have ever gone through the process that turned someone into a SOLDIER. She did just fine without the super strength and inhuman reflexes, thank you. And didn't break something on a weekly basis, either.

That reminded Cloud of something else he'd meant to ask, though. "Zack?" he said, hating himself for sounding so uncertain. "What Sephiroth said, about why I failed to make SOLDIER. Was it true?"

Zack debated for a moment, trying to decide what to tell him, and finally decided that at this point anything less than absolute truth between them would probably be more damaging than helpful. "Yeah, it's true," he admitted. "The exams for SOLDIER were only so difficult so that nobody would try for it on a whim. Shinra wanted to know the candidates were serious about wanting to be part of the program. The actual results didn't matter. The real test was the 'physical examination' they gave you all before you even got into the exam."

"The physical? Why?" Cloud asked, confused. He tried to remember. Had it been any different from every other physical he'd ever had during his time as a trooper?

"That's why they insisted on it being done by Shinra physicians even if the candidate was a civilian," Zack nodded. "They knocked you out and injected a small amount of mako, to see how your body handled it. I've never seen your results personally, mind, but I didn't need to. You either make SOLDIER, or you don't. You must have been one of the ones whose mind was too sensitive to the mako; the full dose would have caused you to get lost under the strain. Hades, Cloud, you've _been_ through it, you know what it's like. The vast majority of people wouldn't be able to stand up to the influence of that much mako."

"But then why?" Cloud burst out, frowning at his lover. "Why did you always encourage me? If I was going to wash out no matter what..."

"Because it isn't 'no matter what'," Zack interrupted him. "It's an issue of how strong your sense of self-integrity is, Cloud. How much will you have, how well you cling to your perception of yourself. That's something that _can_ be built up over time. You _have_ the strength of will, you proved that even back then as a trooper. If I could've ever gotten you to the point where you had a decent amount of self-respect as well, I'd have recommended you for re-examination in a heartbeat."

"Oh." Cloud absorbed that, feeling stunned. "I... oh." He honestly wasn't sure whether that made him feel better, or worse. It was his low self-esteem that had kept him out of SOLDIER? And then failing to make SOLDIER had been such a massive blow to his self-esteem... it was a perpetuating cycle. He would never have managed to break it, except possibly with Zack's help. No wonder his friend had always pushed him so hard to think better of himself.

"Yeah," Zack agreed with his mostly nonverbal response, squeezing his fingers again before he released Cloud's hand to clap the younger man on the shoulder. "So. Let's get to the North Crater before you start getting sleepy, shall we? The sooner we deal with this, the better."

Cloud frowned at Tifa, reminded of what had started the whole conversation in the first place, but she just looked stubbornly back at him. He knew that look; she wasn't going to budge an inch.

Had he ever actually managed to win an argument with her? He couldn't remember it, if so.

"What about the kids?" he made one last try. "If you come in there with us, chances are good you're going to die with us too. Determination is one thing, but there's such a thing as being realistic. Who would take care of them with both of us gone?"

"Cid's, er, not-wife, Sierra," Tifa replied promptly, grinning wryly. "The thought of Cid as a father-figure is somewhat daunting, but she'll make a good mother. Maybe better than I have. I made the arrangement with her years ago, when I first took the kids in. There was no way I was going to leave them helpless if something happened to me."

Well, that cut that argument off cleanly at the knees, Cloud admitted. He couldn't think of any other objections that wouldn't get him punched by Tifa for 'trying to coddle her', and her punches _hurt_ , even for someone who was SOLDIER-tough. "Fine," he gave in gracelessly. "I still think you're crazy."

"No crazier than we are," Zack said, forcibly regaining some of his usual good cheer. He'd discovered long ago that battles tended to go better if you went into them with a positive attitude, and he'd be damned if he'd go into _this_ fight at _any_ kind of disadvantage he could prevent. He stood and offered a hand up to Cloud, smiling across the pool at Tifa. "Let's go clobber the bastard once and for all. I think we've all got a few choice things to say to him."


	21. Chapter 21

They had a bad moment, about twenty minutes away from the crater, when they realized that nobody knew where Cloud was. They hadn't explained exactly what was going on to Cid, just that they had to go to the North Crater to fight Sephiroth, but it belatedly occurred to Zack that maybe they ought to have set a watch on Cloud. Not that he didn't trust his lover, but... well. It was Sephiroth they were dealing with, after all.

"I can't find him," Tifa hissed to Zack as they met again in the corridor just behind the cockpit. "I've searched all the cabins, there's no sign of him."

"I checked the engine room, the lounge, the galley, the stables and the bathroom," Zack sighed, rubbing a hand over the back of his neck and trying not to panic. "Well, the men's bathroom, anyway. I suppose he _might_ have gone into the women's for some reason."

"I looked," Tifa replied with a grim smile. "Where else could he be? You don't think...?"

Chewing his lower lip, Zack turned slowly in a circle and stared at the bulkheads, picturing the layout of the ship in his head. "If I was Cloud on an airship, where would I be?"

"Maybe you should be asking where you'd be if you were Sephiroth," Tifa suggested in a low voice, looking nervously over her shoulder to make sure nobody was in hearing range.

"Not yet," Zack insisted. "I'm not giving up on him. He always was the brooding type, and he was good at sneaking away to be by himself so I couldn't tease him out of it. Until I memorized all his hiding spots, anyway. But damned if I can remember where he'd go on the ships... oh. Of course." He smacked his forehead with his palm and felt like an idiot.

"What?" Tifa looked at him, wide-eyed. "What is it?"

"He never hid on the ships," Zack told her, turning and striding for the ladder to the one place he hadn't yet looked; the outside deck. "He was too damn airsick to brood, he stuck to the railings like glue. Poor bastard."

"Yeah, but he got over his motion sickness," Tifa countered, frowning as she followed after him. "He got a little freaked out in the submarine briefly because it was such close confines, but I've never seen him actually get sick."

"Sure, but old habits die hard," Zack said. He climbed the ladder rapidly and shoved the hatch open, poking his head above deck. The wind of their passage hit him immediately; Cid had believed them when they said they were in a hurry, apparently. It made his eyes tear up so that it was difficult to see, but sure enough when he squinted and looked around he spotted a dark blur up near the prow.

Climbing the rest of the way out, he waved to Tifa to indicate that he'd found their wayward friend, and headed over to Cloud. "Hey, kid," he greeted his lover as softly as he could manage and still be heard over the rushing of the wind. "You okay?"

Cloud looked distinctly green around the gills, much as Zack remembered him always looking on the ships. "Yeah, I'm fine," the younger man assured him, though he had to swallow obviously a couple of times as he spoke.

"We got worried when we couldn't find you, but I should've thought to check up here first," Zack said with some amusement as he leaned against the railing next to the blond. "I thought you got over your motion sickness?"

"I did, but..." Cloud grinned wryly. "I do have to deliberately not pay attention to it. And apparently Sephiroth doesn't like the sensation of being airsick much. As soon as I realized that, I started paying attention to it again. It worked, he hasn't so much as poked at me since we took off, but the downside is I actually have to deal with being _sick_."

"Oh, man," Zack chuckled sympathetically as he rubbed his lover's shoulders. "Well, that's one way to drive the bastard off, I guess. Though not one you could probably keep up indefinitely. Anything that helps, I guess."

"Yeah." Cloud looked back out over the railing, fixing his eyes on a point on the horizon and trying to keep his gaze steady. Letting himself be aware of his airsickness to drive off Sephiroth was one thing, but he didn't want to actually start throwing up. So far he'd been able to maintain the delicate balance, but it wouldn't take much to upset the scales.

"Cloud? We're almost there," Tifa said, coming up behind them. She'd taken a lot longer to climb the ladder, not having Zack's speed and reflexes. She was leaning against the wind, shading her eyes with one hand as she squinted at them. Catching sight of the very obvious scar the crater made across the landscape below them, she added with amusement, "But I guess you already knew that, didn't you?"

"I had a sneaking suspicion," Cloud confirmed with a soft laugh, clutching at the railing as another wave of nausea hit him. It was better than having Sephiroth pushing constantly at his self-control, but not by much. The metal creaked warningly beneath his grip, and he loosened his grasp before he bent it. Cid would tear a strip out of his hide if he so much as scratched anything on the man's airship.

They couldn't land right at the crater, but Cid could and did hover the ship low to the ground so they could drop a rope ladder and climb down. "You sure you don't want me to come with you?" the grizzled older man asked as he watched them check their equipment and weapons one last time. "I can land the ship somewhere nearby..."

"Thanks, Cid," Cloud said, softly but sincerely as he met the man's eyes. "We appreciate it, really. But this is something we need to do on our own." He rolled his eyes at Tifa. "Bad enough I can't talk you out of coming..."

"Don't start that again," Tifa replied impatiently, double-checking the materia in her bracer. They'd all agreed that there was no point going into the fight handicapped, but they also weren't carrying anything offensive. Just cure magic and protective magic, and a couple of mastered All materia. They were all far too aware of exactly what mako really was to be willing to use more magic than was strictly necessary, and anyway Cloud had a sneaking suspicion that none of it would transfer over inside the Lifestream. It would heal them up once they got out again, _if_ they got out again, that was all.

"I've as much right to be there as the two of you," Tifa continued, planting her hands on her hips and giving him a Look. "And you're not going to talk me out of it, so let's go before he realizes what we're up to."

"Right," Zack agreed, slinging his massive sword into its holster at his back and setting his feet on the first rung of the ladder. He climbed down a couple of steps, then wrapped his gloved hands around the side ropes of the ladder and kicked his feet off, sliding down the rope in a controlled fall at breakneck pace.

Tifa gasped, startled, but Cloud had seen his friend and former lieutenant do exactly the same move far too many times in the past not to have expected it. In fact he followed his lover's example as he had never quite dared to do in the past, and quickly discovered why Zack always went down this way; it was _fun_. If he'd been less distracted by what they were heading into, he'd have been enjoying himself.

It took a little longer for Tifa to climb down the normal way, but then all that was left was to head into the caves themselves. Cloud tried not to let his nerves get the best of him, knowing that allowing himself to panic was just asking for Sephiroth to take over, but it was hard not to think about the probable ramifications of what they were about to do. He and Zack had both nearly been lost to the Lifestream the last time they'd been in contact with it. Now they were willingly giving themselves up to it?

"Nervous?" Zack murmured, clapping a hand on his shoulder as he came up beside Cloud. Tifa was in the lead with the lantern, because she needed more light to be able to see than the two of them did.

"A little," Cloud admitted, wincing when his voice came out hoarse. "For about ten million different reasons. Do you really think this is the right thing to do?" he asked, no longer as certain as he had been back in the church.

"I don't see that we've got a whole lot of other options," Zack shrugged ruefully. "It's this, lock you away and let Sephiroth torture you until Rufus _possibly_ comes up with a solution, or kill you. I know which of the three options is most appealing to me."

"Me, too," Tifa put in, looking back over her shoulder at them. "Cloud, we'll be okay. You've beaten him every time you've ever fought him, even when you were nothing but an ordinary sixteen-year-old boy. With Zack and I to help, how can we do anything but win?"

"Honestly? It's not Sephiroth so much that I'm worried about," Cloud replied. "Unless it's that he might manage to drag out the fight until it's too late." Only Aerith's intervention last time had gotten them out with their minds intact, and they couldn't count on that happening again.

"Hey, c'mon," Zack flashed him a grin and a wink. "Victories with crazy plans and against impossible odds are my specialty, don't you remember? That's why I made 1st Class so fast."

"Yeah, I remember," Cloud assured him, rolling his eyes. "I also remember that you spent more time in hot water than out of it. And that you dragged me into it with you as often as not."

"Sure, but the _point_ is that I always got us back out again, didn't I?" Zack countered, grinning wider. "The more impossible the odds, the more I'm in my element."

"Then you're pretty damn far into your element now," Tifa said dryly. "And I hope your luck is still holding. Over here! I found it." They'd been looking for a particular Lifestream pool she remembered from when she'd gone through the caverns with Vincent and Cid; it was deep but not very big across, just large enough for them all to put their hands in it at the same time.

They crowed up close to her as she slipped through a narrow spot; she got through easily enough by turning sideways, but they had to take off their swords and they still scraped skin off their shoulders squeezing through.

"There are advantages to being built like a girl," Cloud murmured, wincing as he prodded at one particularly deep scrape to make certain it wasn't going to be any kind of problem.

"Yes, especially if you are one," Tifa snorted, setting her pack down near the crack they'd just squeezed through. Several other passages branched off this tiny cave, but they weren't interested in any of them. All they wanted was what lay off to the left, glowing brightly enough that they didn't need the lantern; the small, deep pool of iridescent mako.

"Are you sure this is big enough?" she asked, eyeing it uncertainly. It was even smaller than she remembered it being.

"The only thing I had in contact with it before was my fingers," Cloud assured her again. "And if this one doesn't work, we can always find a bigger one. But I'm sure it will."

"And this way, we won't get bodily sucked into the damn stuff like it tried to do to Cloud last time," Zack agreed with a wince at the memory. "The most it can get is our arms. No way even you could squeeze into that, Tifa."

Tifa had to concede the wisdom of that, as she had when he'd first suggested that they find a small pool to try first. "I guess we're ready, then?" she asked, mustering her courage.

"Guess so," Zack nodded, and looked at his lover. "Cloud?"

Cloud found himself very much wanting to say that he wasn't ready, that he'd forgotten something or that he'd decided this was a bad idea after all. He opened his mouth to say exactly that, in fact, but closed it again without letting a sound escape him. Shaking his head, he pressed the heel of his palm against his eye and used the pain from the pressure to help ground himself. "I'm ready," he said hoarsely after a moment.

"Everything okay?" Zack asked cautiously. Here in the crater, so close to so much of the Lifestream, the telltale warnings for when Sephiroth was exerting his power over Cloud were impossible to distinguish. Both of their eyes had turned green and started glowing brightly by the time they were most of the way down the ladder, and Zack didn't know about Cloud but he certainly had a headache not all that dissimilar to the one he felt when Sephiroth was pushing at them.

"I think he's trying to be subtle and convince me I don't want to do this," Cloud muttered. "Which means we're definitely on the right track, so let's do it." Without further warning he sat down at the edge of the pool, tugged off one glove with his teeth, and made to plunge his hand into the mako.

"Wait!" Faster than a striking snake, Zack lunged for his arm and managed to stop him just before his fingers made contact. "Let's do this intelligently, okay? We all go in at the same time, and arranged in such a way that we're all in contact with each other. That way hopefully we don't waste half our time just searching for each other."

"Oh. Yeah, good idea," Cloud admitted, sheepish. He just wanted to get this over with before he lost his nerve entirely. But maybe, having failed to dissuade him, Sephiroth was now trying to goad him into being reckless so he could separate Cloud from his support.

They arranged themselves carefully, stripping off their gloves and crowding close against each other at the edge of the tiny but deep pool. Zack wrapped his bare hand around Cloud's upper arm, Cloud did the same to Tifa, and Tifa completed the circle by hanging onto Zack. That put them all in contact with each other, and left them each a hand free to touch the Lifestream.

"Okay, ready?" Zack asked, but didn't wait to hear the confirmations that probably wouldn't have come anyway. "Give me your hands." They locked their hands together in the centre, and Zack nodded. "Here goes nothing. On three. One... two... three!"

The moment their joined hands contacted the thick liquid in the pool, Cloud let go of his sense of his body and flung himself into the morass of souls and energy that made up the Lifestream. It was different when he wasn't fighting against it; as if it was somehow brighter, more vibrant, and more immediate. It swept him up and threatened to carry him off, and only Zack and Tifa's strong grip on him held him to them.

Zack had expected something like that to happen; Cloud was the most susceptible of the three of them to mako poisoning, so he'd braced himself to hang on to his lover no matter what. He wasn't entirely startled to feel Tifa clutching at Cloud nearly as strongly on the other side, though he was impressed at the visible demonstration of her strength of will.

After a moment of confusion the whirlwind settled itself as their minds imposed an arbitrary structure on the energy around them, and he could see them as well as sense them. Tifa looked past Cloud at him, and her eyes widened.

"You look like a SOLDIER," she exclaimed. He was about to ask her what she meant when it occurred to him to look down. Sure enough he was dressed in his Shinra uniform, the same one he'd been wearing that day in Nibelheim.

She looked different as well; not the young sixteen-year-old in a pretty hat and vest that she'd been in Nibelheim, but not the outfit he was used to seeing her in either. She looked strong and capable, a warrior ready to go to battle.

Cloud, however... "Aw, damn it," Zack muttered, gritting his teeth as he got a look at his lover. He'd been afraid of that. "Cloud!"

"Wha..." With an effort Cloud tore himself away from the fascination of the Lifestream, the strong grips on both his arms reminding him that he was here for a reason. He looked around to find Tifa in the same clothes she'd worn when they'd all been in AVALANCHE, and Zack in his SOLDIER uniform. No big surprises there, except... wasn't he almost the same height as Zack now? Why did it seem like the older man was so much taller than him?

"Cloud?" Tifa said, sounding a little uncertain. "Why..."

"This is what he looked like last time we were in the Lifestream too," Zack told her. Cloud appeared sixteen again, dressed in his trooper uniform and looking every bit as insecure and uncertain as he had then.

"Why, what's wrong with..." Cloud started, and he blinked when his voice cracked. It hadn't done that in nearly a decade. Glancing down at himself, his eyes widened when he saw what he was wearing and realized why Zack seemed so much taller than he should be. " _This_ is my internal image of myself?" he blurted out, dismayed. After all these years, all this struggling, had he really not come any further than this in his own mind?

"Sephiroth's playing mindgames with you, Cloud," Zack told him urgently. "He's trying to make you doubt yourself, that's all. This is not you!"

"Yeah, well, if you've got any bright suggestions for how to fix it, I'd love to hear them," Cloud snapped back, trying not to let his fear show. He could _feel_ the difference in his body; there was no question that this was him as he had been before all the mako enhancements that had made him the equal of any true SOLDIER. He would be the next thing to helpless against Sephiroth like this, not even as capable of defending himself as Tifa was.

Coming up with and instantly discarding half a dozen theories and suggestions on the spot, Zack finally did the only thing he could think of that might have a chance of working. With a silent apology to Tifa, he leaned down and caught the shocked young blond in a passionate kiss, putting everything into it that had been between them during the time they'd spent together. They hadn't had so many encounters yet that Zack didn't still remember every moment of them, and he conveyed as much of those memories as he could manage in the kiss.

Cloud didn't resist, but for a long moment he didn't participate either. Finally, just when Zack was starting to worry that he'd made a mistake, the blond started kissing him back. It was tentative at first, the way Cloud would have kissed him if they'd ever done this back when they'd been teenagers, but as Zack had hoped that didn't last long. They might not have had many chances to be together, but evidently they were just as deeply ingrained into Cloud's memories as they were into Zack's. Within moments of beginning to participate Cloud was struggling with him for dominance of the kiss, turning it into a battle of sorts.

When Zack pulled away they were both panting, but the Cloud who stood before him now was the fierce, strong, competent _equal_ that Zack had always known he could be, and which he had become since he'd rescued Zack from that lab. The Shinra uniform was gone, replaced by the wolf's-head armour the blond favoured now, and the sword at his hip was First Tsurugi instead of the useless Shinra-issue blade he'd once carried.

"That's better," Zack declared fiercely. " _This_ is who you really are. Now stay that way, don't let him sap your self-confidence again. Remember, your sense of self and strength of will are your most important weapons in here."

Watching the exchange from the outside had been a little painful for Tifa, but the pain was mostly lost in the sheer fascination of watching Cloud transform from the nearly helpless boy he had once been into the experienced warrior he was now. Since her only memory of seeing him at the age when he'd been a trooper had been fuzzy at best, she hadn't truly realized just how _much_ he'd changed, or how far he'd come in what was really a relatively short period of time considering how much of it he'd spent unconscious.

If there had been a single lingering doubt in her mind that she'd lost him to Zack, it would have been destroyed in that moment. On the other hand, any doubts that she'd done the right thing by giving him up were also erased, and that meant it didn't hurt as badly as it could have.

"How touching," a deep, cold voice derided them from out of the mako-coloured nothingness that surrounded them. "And how very maudlin. Typical. I suppose now I shall be required to sit through speeches about how love has the power to overcome all obstacles, and that having faith in oneself is the first step to true triumph?"

Sephiroth appeared before them, a sneer twisting his exquisite features, masamune held loosely before him. His contempt would have been obvious even without his words.

"No, actually," Zack said thoughtfully, exchanging a brief glance with Cloud. The blond nodded minutely, and Zack gave their former general a feral grin. "I was figuring we'd start with something more like this."

With no further warning both men launched themselves abruptly at Sephiroth, swords in hand. Tifa was taken completely by surprise, but unfortunately Sephiroth was not. He vanished and reappeared near her, already reaching for her. Whether to hurt her or use her for a hostage, she didn't care to stick around and find out.

Knowing she was the weak link in the chain, Tifa had expected him to go for her the moment she'd seen him flicker out of sight. She whirled into a spin kick, lashing out with her weighted boots in a blow that would have knocked even someone as solid as Sephiroth back a good five or six feet.

Instead of the impact she'd hope for, however, her foot swished through empty space as he vanished once again. When she found the place where he'd reappeared near Cloud, she glared at him.

"Underestimating us was always your greatest weakness," Cloud growled, swinging his blade in a slashing arc. Instead of vanishing this time Sephiroth parried the blow, laughing. In a lightning fast move Cloud split his sword and grabbed the hilt of the new piece, whipping it around and reversing the momentum of the first blow. He was too fast for Sephiroth to block it again, but the bastard simply vanished once more.

Zack had been waiting, concentrating on the energy patterns he could feel swirling around them. He remembered his last battle with Sephiroth in this place, how he'd been able to anticipate where the man would reappear, and he was hoping to be able to pull the same trick twice. When he felt the tiny ripple that presaged Sephiroth's appearance Zack lunged without waiting to actually see him, yelling in triumph as he felt the buster sword drive deep into his opponent.

The sword hit so hard it actually came out the other side, leaving Sephiroth impaled through the lower abdomen. To his shock, however, the bastard simply started to laugh.

"Did you think you were being clever, coming here?" the former general taunted them, vanishing yet again and reappearing, whole and undamaged, just out of reach. Zack staggered at the sudden shift in weight on his sword, barely managing to right himself in time. Cloud snarled and charged at him, swinging both blades, and this time he simply flickered out of existence just long enough for Cloud to go right past him before reforming.

"Oh, I'll grant you, you've managed to find a way to fight me that does not involve risking immediate bodily harm to Cloud," Sephiroth continued, his tone dripping with sarcastic praise. "But did it never occur to you that you were bringing the fight onto my 'home turf', so to speak?" His eyes glowed bright with satisfaction. "This is _my_ territory, and I have occupied it for nearly a decade. Do you, who have only minutes at best before you fray away into nothing, truly think you will be able to destroy me _here_ , of all places?"

Without a sound, attacking silently as Yuffie had taught her to do, Tifa struck him from behind. For a moment, when he didn't vanish just before impact, she thought she'd actually managed to catch him by surprise. But somehow instead of driving her foot into his vulnerable kidney, she suddenly found that he was facing her, his hands clamped around her ankle.

She had one split second to realize how much trouble she was in before the muscles in his arms bunched and he spun in place, lifting her off the non-existent 'ground' and flinging her away from him, wrenching her ankle and knee and dislocating her hip all with one move. She hit the 'ground' hard, grunting in agony as the impact broke at least a couple of ribs and drove all the air out of her lungs.

"Tifa!" Cloud yelled, furious. He readied himself to charge again, not knowing what to do but continue to try to strike the bastard over and over until one of them finally managed a significant blow. If such a thing was even possible. He was starting to think that Sephiroth was telling the truth, and they had severely miscalculated when formulating this plan.

He blinked as he lunged, and abruptly found himself with not just one target, but many. Sephiroth was _everywhere_ , laughing in condescension at his sudden surprise. Before he could quite realize exactly what was happening, two of them struck him from behind. One drove a heavy fist into the base of his skull, sending pain flaring through his head; the other drove the blade of the masamune straight through his back and out his front, then planted a foot on him and contemptuously shoved him off the blade. Cloud collapsed in a spray of blood, choking as his pierced lung began to fill with the thick fluid.

Desperately Zack tried to trigger a healing spell, but as he'd half expected the materia in his bracer was lifeless and inert. It wasn't really _there_ , after all; it was back on his body, propped up in a cave somewhere else. If this was even that materia at all, and not a reproduction of whatever it was he'd been carrying the last time he'd worn this uniform. The sword worked well enough, but the magic was useless.

Cursing, he abandoned the attempt and parried a blow from one of the Sephiroths. Taking a chance, he charged into the centre of the group and aimed for the one closest to Cloud, the one the blond had been aiming for just before the swarm had appeared.

Sephiroth only laughed again and allowed the blow to land. Zack swept the sword up and around in an arc, cleaving the man nearly in half as he cut him from hip to shoulder. The - copy? clone? what the hell _were_ these things? - fell beneath his blade, only to vanish a moment before it would have hit the 'ground'. There were still at least a dozen more, all wearing variations on the same mocking smile.

With an effort Tifa forced her dislocated hip back into place and staggered to her feet. It hurt, gods, the whole leg felt like it was on fire, with stabbing knives of red-hot metal piercing her at each joint, but she'd long ago learned how to fight on with worse injuries than this. "If you think this is going to be enough to beat us, you need to think again," she snarled, and lashed out at the nearest clone with a combination roundhouse kick and jabbing punch that laid it out flat. It, too, vanished, but in the confusion of multiple identical bodies it was hard to tell if she'd somehow destroyed it or if it had just reappeared elsewhere.

Cloud was on his feet again as well, his enhanced body letting him take more damage than anyone human should have been able to continue fighting with. He slashed and cut at the clones around him, putting his back against Zack's to give them both support and cover. Between the two of them they created a deadly zone of destruction, and after a few moments Cloud realized with a sense of hope that there were definitely fewer clones visible than there had been before.

Until they were suddenly struck from _above_ , then from below an instant later, without warning. Zack went down with a cry, his legs literally cut out from under him, as Cloud staggered under a blow that felt like it shattered his shoulder rather than merely breaking it. Looking around, he realized that the Sephiroth clones were no longer all on a level with him; they were hovering at any height, above or below the plane Zack, Cloud and Tifa 'stood' on, as if gravity affected them not at all.

Another of them caught Tifa from behind and above before Cloud could shout a warning to her, and she screamed as Sephiroth ran her through with the masamune once again and lifted her a good five feet above the 'ground' she'd stood on. It was obvious that the new bending of gravity didn't apply to them; when he flung her off the blade again, she tumbled right back down to the same level she'd been on before, impacting the invisible barrier with a sickening thud. She fought to rise again almost immediately, but she was coughing blood and barely able to get to her hands and knees.

Zack was cursing and struggling behind him, battling an enemy that could strike him from below, but whom he could hit only when they came up above what was 'ground' level for him. As long as the clones stayed below whatever it was Cloud and the others stood on, Zack couldn't get at them. The buster sword was stopped at the same level Zack sat on, as surely as if he were trying to hack it through solid metal. He couldn't even get to his feet, the tendons of his left leg cut at the back of the knee and a deep wound in his right thigh keeping him from putting any weight on it.

Even as Cloud turned to try to help, one of the clones hacked at him from below, cutting deep into Zack's back and slicing right through his spine. Cloud watched in sick horror as Zack shrieked in agony and dropped the buster sword from nerveless fingers, collapsing completely to the ground. Spinal injuries couldn't be fixed, even with magic, everyone knew that. If, as had happened with Cloud's broken arm the last time they'd been here, injuries that occurred here transferred over to the real world, then Zack had just been paralysed for life.

This wasn't right. Somehow, Cloud knew that this wasn't right. This was all going exactly the way Sephiroth wanted it to. They were at a horrible disadvantage; they couldn't hope to win this battle at all, let alone within the unknown amount of time they had left before they started to dissolve into the Lifestream and lost themselves permanently. Yet Sephiroth had been trying to keep him from coming here, he was certain of it. _Why_? What was Cloud missing, what factor was there that Sephiroth had been afraid of but which they had failed to use, allowing him to get the upper hand?

This was the Lifestream. It was an environment inherently hostile to them, because they had to struggle just to hold themselves together within it. Sephiroth was completely at home here, a total master of his surroundings and able to bend them to his will. What could possibly turn that against him?

Looking desperately back and forth between Zack and Tifa, Cloud was just about ready to scream his frustration. What were they missing?

It came to him all at once, like a blinding flash of insight. Sephiroth wasn't the only one who had spent long enough in the Lifestream to master its oddities. Just as one of the Sephiroth clones reared back with the masamune and prepared to run him through, he threw his head back and screamed, " _Help us!_ "

The sudden bright light pierced through the ubiquitous green like a ray of sun coming through heavy storm clouds. White and gold sparkles settled over Zack, Cloud and Tifa, and suddenly Cloud was able to take a deep breath and move his arm again. In the space of an instant all of his injuries were healed, and a golden glow sprang into being around him. The clone that had been about to run him through got a nasty shock as masamune bounced right off Cloud's body, refusing to penetrate through the shield.

Struggling against his suddenly unresponsive body, lost in the grip of terror and panic, Zack missed hearing what Cloud had said. Unable to turn to see what was going on, he thought the scream was when Sephiroth finally managed to destroy the younger man, and despair nearly consumed him.

It came as a complete and total shock, therefore, when the golden light fell over him and he found himself with full control of his body once again. Even as he instinctively snatched up his sword and bounced to his feet, he couldn't quite make his conscious mind accept what had happened. His spine had been severed, he was _sure_ of it, and no magic he'd ever heard of could heal that.

With a yell of rage and defiance, Tifa pushed herself off the ground into a whirling series of kicks and punches that completely decimated the three clones nearest her. _She_ recognized this, as impossible as it was, though she'd seen Great Gospel performed only a few times before and that had been years ago.

Or was it impossible? Laughing, Tifa realized the same thing Cloud had. The Lifestream might be Sephiroth's territory... but he wasn't alone in it.

"All you had to do was ask," Aerith chided Cloud gently, her blue-green eyes full of love and compassion as she looked around at her three friends. She stood in the middle of them, as real and solid as they were, her staff held ready in her hands. He thought he'd never seen anything as beautiful in his life as she was standing there, wrapped in her own soft glow like an angel sent from heaven.

"Aerith?" Zack gasped, hardly able to believe his eyes. Gods, why hadn't _he_ thought of that? Of course she was here, she'd even helped them last time... but not until he'd called out to her for help.

"Do you think this changes anything?" Sephiroth scoffed. His tone hadn't changed one bit from his earlier sneer, but if Cloud hadn't known better he'd have said there was a hint of fear in the man's cold green eyes. "She cannot touch me."

"No," Aerith agreed sadly. "If I could, I'd have released you from this endless torment you've subjected yourself to. I'm sorry. I wish I could have helped you long ago. But I can help them, now." She looked at Cloud, Zack and Tifa. "Go. Do what you must. I'll keep you all alive and coherent."

Cloud didn't need another invitation. He lunged at the nearest clone, splitting First Tsurugi into halves again and executing a spinning slash that brought both blades into contact with his target at extreme speed. It actually cried out in pain as it vanished, and this time Cloud knew it was gone for good. They _could_ be hurt. That meant they could be killed. Whatever they were, shadows or extensions of Sephiroth's power, they weren't nearly as strong individually as he was.

The invulnerability granted by Great Gospel only lasted for one hit each, but Aerith continued to cast healing magic over them as often as she could draw breath to speak the spells. If there was a limit to her magic it wasn't one that would be reached any time soon; she seemed to be drawing on the very air around them for the power for her spells. Of course, that 'air' was nothing more or less than the Lifestream itself, magic in its purest form. That freed the three of them to attack relentlessly, and without having to worry about blocking or dodging more than was absolutely necessary.

Sephiroth still had one major advantage, of course. He had control over gravity, while they did not. He quickly learned that remaining above them did little to help his cause, as even Tifa was capable of jumping higher than masamune's reach to get at him. But the clones that stayed below the 'ground' were all but invulnerable so long as they remained there.

"Can't you do something?" Tifa cried out as she paused by Aerith, trying to catch her breath. She watched with a sense of awe as Zack and Cloud fought, together and separately, like unstoppable killing machines. They took blows that would have flattened her, and hardly seemed to notice them in the time it took before Aerith could heal them.

"You haven't been here long enough for your minds to escape the restrictions of what you expect the world to behave like," Aerith told her between spells. "If you don't have a 'ground', you'll only float aimlessly."

Apparently realizing that if he could only rid himself of Aerith the battle would return to its former balance in his favour, Sephiroth created half a dozen new clones in the blink of an eye and set them all on Aerith. Cloud and Zack were both too far away to help, but there was no way in hell Tifa was letting him get away with _that_.

"Oh, no you don't!" she snarled, and whipped her foot around to smash it straight through the chest of one of the clones. "I've got it!" she called, seeing both of the men frantically trying to fight their way back to them. "I'll protect her, you two worry about Sephiroth!" She jammed her elbow back in a strike that crushed the nose and half the face of another clone, taking a vicious sort of pleasure in the sound of agony it made before vanishing.

Grinning, Zack gave her a thumbs-up and Cloud nodded to show that he'd heard and understood. If she said she could handle it, then she could handle it. Tifa wasn't the sort to boast or make promises she couldn't keep, especially not when someone's life was on the line.

"If we have to float, then let us float!" Zack shouted to Aerith, his grin vanishing as he swore in frustration, once again a split second too slow to strike at one of the clones that had come up above 'ground' to hit him. "At this rate he's just going to wear us down!"

Aerith nodded, and released her staff to bring her hands together in front of her in a position of prayer. She bowed her head over them, her lips moving silently. Remembering the moment when Sephiroth had run her through from behind and killed her, Tifa looked around sharply in case he tried the same thing again.

She saw first Cloud and then Zack flail and fall - no, she realized belatedly, not fall. _Sink_. The 'ground' had vanished for both of them, allowing them to get at the clones beneath them but leaving them with nothing solid to use as leverage.

Cursing, Cloud swung his sword at the nearest clone, just inches out of his reach. Sephiroth laughed at him, using masamune's greater length to inflict half a dozen shallow cuts on him in the space of a breath. Cloud snarled and bashed at the longer sword with one of the blades of First Tsurugi, and inadvertently pushed himself backwards into range of one of the other clones. He took care of that one before it could strike him, but that left him out of reach of anyone but Zack.

"That's it!" Zack had seen what Cloud had just done, and realized the solution to their problem. "Cloud! Treat it like one of our aerial sparring matches. Use _him_ as the walls!"

Cloud immediately saw what his lover was getting at, and grinned fiercely. With a shout he turned and swung at _Zack_ , ignoring the two clones that were closing in on his flanks. The move obviously caught Sephiroth completely by surprise, because the clones hesitated briefly. Just long enough.

Zack had lashed out at him at the same moment, and the force of the parry sent them both spinning away from each other. They'd fought together in the air so many times now that they knew how to calculate exactly the angle they'd go flying off at when they came away from the impact. Each of them had aimed so they would end up heading towards one of Sephiroth's clones.

Reaching his target first, Cloud managed to catch the bastard by surprise and destroyed the clone, pushing himself off of it just before it vanished to send him back towards Zack. His lover had been just a fraction of a second slower in reaching the clone he'd been aiming at, just enough for Sephiroth to evade him. That meant he didn't have anything to push off of; this wasn't going to be quite as easy as bouncing off the walls, Cloud realized.

"Damn it, we need something that's not going to run away from us," Zack shouted as Cloud caught up to him and they grabbed each other by the wrist, using the point of contact as a fulcrum to swing themselves around and change their trajectories before launching off each other again.

Splitting the First Tsurugi once again to strike at two clones as he passed them, Cloud's eyes lit up as he got an idea. With a deft twist of his wrists he broke the blade into all six of its component parts, hanging onto one but sending the others tumbling out into the space around them. The swords wouldn't vanish on impact, and would give them something to boost themselves off of.

"Brilliant!" Zack crowed, now wishing he _had_ gotten a 'cool transforming sword' like Cloud had. He slashed at the nearest clone, using it to change his angle slightly, and hit one of First Tsurugi's blades. Fiercely he concentrated on the idea that the sword piece would be heavy enough to provide him with a change in momentum. Strength of will was what really counted here in the Lifestream, right? To his relief it worked; instead of only slowing him slightly, the impact with the blade let him push off it again.

Though still vigilant in watching for any attempts to get at Aerith, Tifa couldn't help but gape at the two men as they flew through the air as surely as if they had wings. She could keep herself in the air for a couple of seconds by changing her momentum with strikes, but not _that_ long. If it hadn't been so deadly it would have been beautiful to watch.

There were fewer Sephiroth clones left now; only three, but with each 'death' of a clone the remaining ones seemed to absorb the power that had been used to create the defeated ones. Each one was harder to 'kill' than the last, and Cloud had already struck at one of them several times without managing to finish it off.

He glanced over quickly to see where Zack was, and found that the older man had actually latched onto one of the clones, holding himself in place and swinging the buster sword one-handed. That left him equally vulnerable to Sephiroth, of course, since he couldn't dodge, but Aerith's spells were healing him just fast enough for him to be able to keep going. That clone was almost finished, but the still-untouched third one was closing in on his lover from behind.

Shouting a warning, Cloud threw the piece of First Tsurugi that he still held with all his strength. The sudden change in tactics once again caught Sephiroth off guard, and the blade plunged right through the throat of the clone he'd been concentrating on. It vanished, and the force of the toss sent Cloud flying in the opposite direction, towards one of the other pieces of his sword.

Defying the laws of physics as he knew them, Cloud pictured what he wanted to have happen in his mind as he approached the sword. He got a hand around the hilt at the same time that his feet impacted the blade, tucked up into an awkward crouch. Then he pushed off the blade _and_ kept his grip on the hilt, taking the sword with him. It shouldn't have worked, but it did, and now he was heading towards Zack and the last two clones with a sword in his hand.

The warning had been just soon enough for Zack to release his grip on the clone and throw himself to one side. Masamune pierced through the damaged clone instead of him, doing his work for him, and Zack laughed. Sephiroth cursed and pulled back. In the split second before the dying clone vanished, Zack got one foot braced against it and shoved off, sending himself at Sephiroth.

Of course, now they were fighting the real thing again, and it wouldn't be that easy. Worse, if they let him have a chance to create more clones, they'd have to go through the whole process again. Aerith _would_ tire eventually; her supply of magical energy might be inexhaustible, but it was a mental and physical effort to channel and direct that much power. Or worse, one of the clones might get through Tifa to hurt the half-Cetra, and that would be the end of all of them.

"Sephiroth!" he shouted, hoping to keep the former general's attention on him instead of on splitting himself once more. "You miscalculated something, you bastard!"

"Oh? Do tell," Sephiroth replied archly, clearly amused as they closed in on him.

"Those trite cliches exist for a reason!" Zack replied fiercely. "You shouldn't have waited until we were together. Two heads are better than one, the whole is more than the sum of its parts, love conquers all... you take your pick!"

Sephiroth vanished once more as Zack and Cloud reached him, but they'd both been expecting that. Zack had already been straining to sense the ripple of energy that would mark the point where Sephiroth would emerge; the moment he felt it he grabbed Cloud by the arm and literally threw the younger man at him.

Then he struck the nearest piece of First Tsurugi and rebounded off it at an angle, bouncing off a second bit to alter his trajectory, heading for the same point he'd just sent Cloud to.

Sephiroth didn't even have a chance to realize what had happened; he'd only barely taken form when Cloud struck him with all of the blond's considerable strength. An instant later Zack hit him from behind, and both swords drove straight through the man to the hilt.

Pressed up close against Sephiroth from either side in an obscene parody of a lover's embrace, Zack grinned fiercely over his former general's shoulder at his lover. Cloud didn't smile back, but his eyes gleamed with no less satisfaction.

And, Zack realized with a sense of stunned joy, Cloud's eyes were _blue_. Glowing brighter than ever before, yes, but they were very definitely Cloud's eyes and not Sephiroth's.

"You were right about one thing," Cloud murmured as Sephiroth choked and coughed up blood. "This is the end of everything."

He nodded at Zack, and they both braced themselves. With twin yells of triumph and years-old grief, they ripped their swords sideways through Sephiroth's body and cut the man literally in half.

Not even Sephiroth could survive that, not here where they were actually attacking the core of him instead of a ghost or projection. Masamune slipped from his fingers to vanish into the ether, and a moment later he began to dissolve as well.

Without a second thought Zack let go of the buster sword and caught Cloud around the shoulders, pulling his lover close to him. Cloud gave a laugh that was half hysterical and held him back, his shoulders shaking.

"Is that it?" the blond asked hoarsely as the last faint ghost of Sephiroth disappeared. "I expected some kind of... I don't know, speech about the evils of humanity or a promise to find a way to come back _again_ or something."

"It's over," Zack confirmed, hugging him tight. They were both sore and exhausted; Aerith's spells had kept them going, but they would be paying the price for all that healing for a long time to come.

Speaking of Aerith... looking around, Zack saw the girls heading for them at a run. That made him realize that he and Cloud were standing again, the 'ground' once more in place beneath their feet.

"Cloud!" Tifa shouted, unable to contain her sheer glee. "Cloud, you did it, we did it! He's gone!"

"For good this time, I hope," Cloud agreed, letting go of Zack and scooping her up into a fierce hug.

"Yes, for good," Aerith confirmed, watching them with a smile. "The part of him that was human has been released into the Lifestream at last, and he will finally rest in peace. Jenova is gone. Even the cells you carry are lifeless now, inert."

"All thanks to you," Zack said warmly, picking her up much as Cloud had with Tifa and swinging her in a circle. It felt so strange to have her in his arms again; strange, but definitely good.

Except she felt more delicate than he remembered, and she hardly weighed more than a feather. It was as if she had no substance, only a fragile outer shell. Putting her back down again, he held her at arm's length and studied her with worried eyes. "Aerith?"

Catching the concern in his lover's voice, Cloud turned to look. He couldn't see anything wrong, but Aerith was shaking her head and her smile had turned sad and wistful.

"I've been saving my power until now, knowing this would have to come sooner or later," she told them. "Sending you all back to your bodies will take the last of what I have."

"What? No!" Tifa cried, dismayed. She let go of Cloud to reach for the woman who had been her friend for such a brief time, but who had been a good and true friend despite that. Aerith caught her hands and squeezed them with her fingers, and Tifa felt the same delicate quality Zack had. She was afraid to squeeze back, for fear she would shatter the older woman.

"I don't belong here any more than he did," Aerith said softly. "It's my time to finally rest now, as well. I love you all, but I am so tired."

"Aerith..." Cloud trailed off, not knowing what else to say. He already had her forgiveness, and her love. He didn't want to lose her, didn't want to stand in her garden and _not_ feel a whisper of her presence ghosting over him, but how could he beg her to stay when she so obviously wanted to rest at last?

He swallowed, and reached out to hug her carefully. She let go of Tifa with one hand to hug him back, then went up on tiptoe to kiss him briefly. "Be happy," she ordered him as she pulled away again, her tone back to being as cheerful and sunny as it had always been. "That's all I ever wanted, for any of you. Be happy, and be together, and you will have the strength to face anything that comes against you in your lives."

"You always were too damn selfless for your own good," Zack told her with fond exasperation. He glanced at Cloud with a wordless question. The blond nodded, surprised Zack had felt the need to even ask. As if he could have said 'no'.

That was all Zack needed, and he pulled Aerith into a tight embrace and kissed her hard. As much as he loved and was happy with Cloud, she would always hold a special place in his heart, and he was grateful for this last chance to end things on a good note. "I love you," he told her as he released her. "Rest well, and be at peace. You've earned it."

Sniffling despite her best efforts not to, Tifa wiped her eyes. "Go," she echoed Zack. "We'll be okay. And we'll join you again someday."

She smiled at all of them, and the white light that still surrounded her like a nimbus grew until it consumed their entire vision. Cloud blinked hard a couple of times, and when the glow faded he found himself sitting beside the mako pool once more, holding Tifa's arm as Zack gripped his. He was exhausted but unharmed, and maybe it was his imagination but it seemed like there was a lingering scent of flowers around them.

"So that's it, then," Tifa said softly, disengaging herself from the two men and rising to her feet, stretching. Her back cracked audibly, and she winced. "How long were we down here?"

Shoving back his glove, Cloud checked his watch. "About half a day, looks like. Didn't seem like it was that long."

"I'm just glad it wasn't longer," Zack declared, standing as well and grimacing as his body protested. He might not be injured, but all the places where he _had_ taken blows in the fight were aching and stiff. Remembering the spine injury, he was fiercely grateful that aches and a little stiffness were _all_ he was suffering.

Offering Cloud a hand, he tugged his lover up and pulled him into a quick hug. Saying goodbye to Aerith once and for all had been hard, but it was easier because he knew what he had waiting for him here.

Cloud hugged him back, then impulsively offered his hand to Tifa as well. She took it and squeezed his fingers, and smiled at him. "Lovers or not, don't think you're getting rid of me that easily," she told him.

"I wouldn't dream of it," he assured her. He couldn't imagine his life without her in it in some form. "Come on," he added, looking up at the cave ceiling as if he could somehow see through it if he just stared hard enough. Out there Cid and the airship were waiting, and beyond that... "We've got the rest of our lives to live," he said softly, feeling as if a massive weight had been lifted off his shoulders now that he knew Sephiroth was gone for good.

"And we'd better make them good lives, or you know Aerith'll scold the hell out of us when we see her in the next ones, or whatever happens after you join the Lifestream for real," Zack agreed with a grin, reaching out to clap a hand on Tifa's shoulder and complete the circle for a brief moment. "That means we've got our work cut out for us."

"I don't know," Cloud countered, wondering how his life could possibly get any better than it was right at this moment. "I think we've done a pretty good job already." Then he smiled. "But I'm willing to keep trying."


	22. Epilogue

**Omake!**

"Wait, so, let me get this straight," Zack said, looking back and forth between Cloud and Tifa with a raised eyebrow.

"Tifa, did you _have_ to tell him this story?" Cloud groaned, hiding his eyes with his hand and wishing he dared to drown himself somehow in the half empty beer he still held.

"Corneo wouldn't let anyone in but pretty girls," Zack continued right over top of Cloud, sounding incredulous, "So Aerith convinced him to put on a _dress_?"

The bar had been repaired in record time, and looked better than ever. Cloud and Zack, of course, had done the lion's share of the work, but all the former members of AVALANCHE had pitched in to help. Even Cait and Nanaki had carried buckets of nails and other supplies, doing their own part in their own ways. They were celebrating the end of the work with a private party; tomorrow Tifa would open for business to the general public again, but tonight was just for them.

"Why haven't we ever heard this story before?" Yuffie demanded, clearly delighted at Cloud's embarrassment. She and Zack had taken to each other like long-lost siblings, and she had been positively gleeful to see how easily Zack could fluster Cloud. Not to mention being astonished at how often the blond smiled now.

It was a lot easier to smile now, Cloud reflected. Just having Zack had been enough to do it, but with the added relief of Sephiroth's destruction... well, what the hell did he have left to brood about? He still felt an ache in his chest sometimes when he stood in the garden and automatically listened for Aerith, but he didn't begrudge her the rest she'd earned.

At least, it was a lot easier to smile when Zack wasn't thoroughly embarrassing him. With Tifa's help, of course. How on earth had this topic come up, anyway?

"I want to see the pictures," Zack demanded, his eyes glowing with mirth more than mako.

"There aren't any pictures," Cloud informed him, grateful for that much at least.

"Yeah, right," Zack replied, obviously sceptical. "You're telling me Aerith managed to get you into a dress, and didn't find _some_ way of recording it for posterity? I don't believe it."

"She didn't exactly have a camera on her!" Cloud protested, uncovering his face to glare at his lover as half the occupants of the bar snickered. "There are no pictures!"

"Well, actually..." Tifa trailed off, failing to hide a grin behind the hand she tried to cover it with.

"There are _pictures_?" Cloud turned on her, horrified. "Where? _How_?"

"From Don Corneo's security cameras," she informed him, trying hard not to laugh at the look of utter dismay on his face but not having much success.

"I want to see!" Yuffie and Zack chorused, and grinned at each other.

"I think I wanna see this, too," Barrett rumbled, laughing. "Always did feel cheated that I was the only one who wasn't there."

"Oh, gods," Cloud moaned, and buried his face in his arms as he blushed so hard even his ears and the back of his neck were red. "Odin, just strike me down where I stand."

"I'll get them," Tifa said, and turned to run up the stairs before Cloud could lunge across the bar and stop her. Odin didn't seem inclined to make an appearance, unfortunately. Briefly Cloud wondered if there was any way he could cast Stop on all of them, steal the pictures and destroy them before Tifa got back with them.

Too late. "Here they are!" she carolled as she came back into the room, waving a handful of glossy photos over her head. Zack snatched them out of her hand just a split second before Cloud would have gotten them, and deftly managed to keep them out of his lover's reach.

"That's my girl! I knew she wouldn't let me down," the former SOLDIER crowed, and whistled appreciatively as he got a look at the first photo. "Damn, Tifa! Nice legs!"

She flushed, pleased by the compliment, and giggled at the expression of mortification Cloud was wearing as Zack passed half the photos to Yuffie and started looking through the rest. "Wow, Aerith looks even better in a sexy dress than she did when I was dating her," the brunet chuckled, and paused as he got to one that showed Cloud clearly. "Holy fuck, kid, you _worked_ that dress!"

"He did, didn't he?" Tifa giggled. Cloud gave up on trying to get the photos before anybody else got a good look at him; the others had crowded around Yuffie and Zack, and it was hopeless at this point.

"I am going to kill you," he growled, more embarrassed than he'd even been in his life. Even more than when he'd worn the damn dress in the first place.

Worse, Zack was giving him a speculative look. "Hmm. I don't suppose..."

Cloud didn't have a Haste materia with him, but desperation gave him a speed even he didn't normally possess. He managed to catch Zack by surprise and grappled his best friend and lover into a painful headlock. "Don't even _think_ about it," he warned. Not even for Zack was he _ever_ dressing up like that again!

"Aww, but you were so sexy," Zack chuckled, his voice breathless from the position Cloud held him in but otherwise not dismayed in the least. "That colour really brought out the blue in your eyes..."

"Absolutely not!" Cloud all but howled, and Zack laughed and managed to break free. Cloud lunged for him again, but Tifa got a hand on each of their shoulders and forced them apart.

"If you two break my lovely new bar again, you are fixing the damage by _yourselves!_ " she declared, and that was enough to get them to settle down. Mostly.

"I'm still going to kill you both," Cloud insisted, and coughed as Barrett thumped him solidly in the shoulder with his good hand.

"Just think of it this way," the black man advised him with a laugh. "Least, since she's got the pictures, you ain't in danger of us gettin' you drunk and convincing you to let us see for ourselves, right?"

Blanching at the very idea, Cloud just groaned. He'd liked to have been able to say that he would _never_ have gone along with an idea like that, no matter how drunk he was... but Tifa knew how to mix drinks that were strong enough to hit even a SOLDIER hard, and Zack was far too good at dragging him into somehow doing things he was _certain_ he'd never actually agreed to do.

Leaning in so he could wrap an arm around his humiliated lover's shoulders, Zack just chuckled. He knew Cloud was probably going to make him _pay_ for this tonight... but it wouldn't be by telling him to sleep on the non-existent couch, and Zack was so totally not complaining about any other kind of revenge the blond might extract on him in bed. After all, it would only give him a chance to retaliate later.


End file.
